More on hidden rivers

I wrote a post about hidden rivers a few years ago. This episode of the CBC Radio program What On Earth is about “daylighting” long hidden rivers and brooks as a way to help adapt to climate change in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Which reminded me of a hidden river in Paris, la Bièvre, that people have been trying to uncover for many years. I looked it up and found this lovely podcast in French about the first section to be daylighted (daylit? Spellcheck doesn’t like either) and the river’s role in keeping the city cool, managing floods, and making space for all kinds of living things along its banks. This article in English gives some of the same information and also links to stories about daylighting rivers in several more countries.

Oh, and one more thing: the screenshot above? It’s from this fascinating webpage from 2010 about the historic sewers of St. John’s, originally created by enclosing the creeks and brooks that ran downhill to the harbour, now all buried under the streets. I guess I really am a nerd to be fascinated by antique sewers but how could anyone not be inspired by the idea of bringing buried waterways back to life?