Introduction
Humanity has been intervening in the Earth’s landscape for millennia. Much of these interventions have centered around water, arguably the most important resource to sustain civilization, humans have increasingly built complex infrastructures to control and manipulate it. This act of exerting influence and intent over a resource such as water is called agency, and generally refers to the human capacity to bring about a particular outcome. Urbanism, or the development and planning of cities and towns, is increasingly favoring “dryness” by paving over wetlands, damming, building over river flows, and coastal expansion. In turn, these massive interventions are disrupting the underlying hydrology and the overall local ecosystem. Yet because many of these initial transformations occur beneath the ground, and over long stretches of time, there remains a general unawareness of the ecological consequences of these constant interventions. Increasingly however, these changes are being made known through the increase of devastating weather and geological events. Droughts, wildfires, flooding and deforestation are growing evidence of these ecological changes. As increased attention is given to the changing ecology, humans are quick to call for a “reversion” to a pre-human natural world. A certain idealism is placed in the pre-industrial condition, that celebrates an “untouched” natural 10
