America’s rivers are beset by our unrelenting population growth

September 22nd was World Rivers Day, which is an annual global event that falls on the fourth Sunday of every September. Rivers play a vital role in our lives and the environment, and World Rivers Day serves as a rally cry to safeguard rivers for future generations while preserving the ancient web of life that depends on these aquatic ecosystems. This message is critically important in America where rivers face an array of threats, such as pollution and overuse from human population growth, which often leads to critical losses in resiliency to droughts and floods.

These days the most notorious example is the beleaguered Colorado River, which is suffering from overuse and drought.

Proper stewardship is critically important because 40 million people depend on the Colorado River for drinking water. Other notable examples of stressed and misused rivers include the Mississippi River, the Mobile River (AL), Tar Creek (OK), the Los Angeles River, and the Lower Kern River (CA), all which suffer from pollution, damming, and/or overuse. Growing populations within these respective watersheds are driving the rivers’ worsening problems.

Not only are river flows lowered as our expanding populations draw on them for irrigation and drinking water, water quality also is worsened from waste disposal of sewage and/or urban runoff. In addition, growth and development can impair rivers in the following ways:

• Loss of baseflow – groundwater levels can fall due to excessive water supply withdrawals, wetlands filling, creating extensive areas of impervious surfaces (e.g., pavement and rooftops) which, during storms, can also deliver a rush of runoff to rivers that causes riverbank erosion and flooding;
• Loss of flood resiliency – when floodplains, which slow runoff and store floodwaters, are cleared for housing or commercial buildings (along with the fill for roadways and parking lots), the natural channel of a riverway is obstructed and displaced, and inevitably leads to catastrophic flooding events;
• Ecosystem disruption – the most extreme form of river alteration is diversion and damming to create drinking water reservoirs and/or enlarge water supplies, which can cause dramatic disruptions to the aquatic ecosystem (e.g., habitat loss and fragmentation, sediment deposition, higher water temperatures).

What can be done?

Interestingly, former Independent presidential candidate turned Donald Trump ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently announced his commitment to prioritize the health of “America’s rivers, wilderness, forests, wetlands, coasts, and soil at the top of President Trump’s environmental agenda” (if Trump is elected in November).

Despite the Clean Water Act, many of America’s rivers are suffering, with no relief in sight, as our population continues to soar to unprecedented levels. The Census Bureau projects America’s population will grow by another 50 million in the next 35 years, with roughly 90% of that caused by immigration.

Ultimately, successful protection and restoration of America’s rivers and surrounding riparian zones will depend on curtailing America’s immigration-driven population growth.