Source: Mother Earth News - A "well-behaved" brook can produce energy; water for crops, livestock, or and fish for food and re- creation. people; creation. A degraded one, on the other hand, detracts from the appearance of its surround ings and-during and just after a flood-can endanger life and property, as well as ab sconding with chunks of irreplaceable soil.

Floods and massive soil erosion naturally bring to mind another virtue of a wellmannered stream: its ability to carry excess water off the land in an orderly fashion. A stream, however, isn't the only thing that can perform that function. There's that human invention known as a ditch. Far too often, when a stream fails to dispose of its load of water efficiently, we tend to think of it as a malfunctioning ditch. We even discipline rowdy streams into monotonous canals through the process called channelization: straightening and deepening the streambed and removing all obstructions to flow.  This often "works" in controlling the flooding and erosion control-if you don't care about fish, wildlife, aesthetics, or recreation, and if you can justify dumping your problem on people downstream.

You can stop streams from flooding or changing course over the years without resorting to heroic engineering feats. You can also prevent changes in course and water level from occurring so abruptly that the carrying capacity of the land-for everything from wildlife to agriculture to housing-is reduced with each rain.