We all live downstream / upstream

Water outside of our households for the most part is off the radar for most of us most of the time.  We take it for granted that when we turn on the tap, press the button on the toilet cistern, turn on the shower tap that water will magically appear, as if out of nowhere.  

This is the first in a series of stories about our relationship with water.  Not the water in the shower or kitchen sink or dish washer or washing machine, but the water in the catchments, where each of us knowingly or unknowingly, is impacting on the quality of the water as it flows downstream.

In one sense, as the adage goes, we all live downstream. That is, downstream of someone who lives upstream, in which case, we all live upstream –  what we do has an impact on those living further down the catchment.

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Waterways in the urban landscape

In the driest continent that is characterised by dry times and flooding rains, how would we describe our relationship with water?  For too long we’ve left water out of our planning equations, preferring to see it as something to be engineered to fit a humancentric formula of a mechanistic way of life.  But if we intend to stick around for longer than a couple of generations then we need to bring water into our lives as if we deeply cared for water as we claim we do.

From the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRC-WSC) comes a compendium of factsheets, under the title Improving the ecological function of urban waterways. In every urban landscape water has come off second best, so it comes as no surprise that each of the Factsheets is about repairing the damage done. All the waterways flowing from Munibung Hill have been drastically altered from their indigenous state and are unable to function as nature originally designed.

First things first … Repairing Flow: what to do at the site, what to do in the catchment.    For more … click on the link below .

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Catching up with creeks – Biddabah Creek
The major creek on the south east side of Munibung Hill is Biddabah Creek.  The catchment takes in the suburb of Lakelands and northern portions of Warners Bay.  It is a subsidiary of the larger North Creek catchment – with headwaters in Charlestown. 

Biddabah means ‘a quiet resting place’ in the Awabakal peoples’ language. The catchment is not steep so for much of the creek’s flow to where it joins North Creek before flowing into the lake, it is quietly running in a shallow bed with low banks, not making a big deal of its presence. In this respect, it can be overlooked, being almost hidden away in the landscape.  But this doesn’t detract from its importance, because in spite of this inconspicuousness, there are all the features of a waterway present in the habitat.

If we care to take the time – to pay attention – as Vina Chubb has done in the case of the waterbirds around the wetland areas (see previous two issues of MMM).- we will discover a range of micro and macro aquatic species essential for a healthy waterway. One that attracts larger species such as the birds, with their new chicks each spring, and which we find attractive and fascinating.

MMM … Issue 27, March 2022