Follow the roots of plants downward and see how tendrils intertwine with sediment and gravel. Rocks in river ecosystems act as anchors of various natures, forming the boundaries that interact with water and currents in order to demarcate the formation of riverbanks and where the river starts and ends. Water pushes sediment around, compacting sediment into rocks, eroding stones and smoothing their surfaces, and so much more.

Landscapes quite literally rely on and are constituted of various kinds of sediments and rocks, and yet we scarcely stop to look at the ground beneath our feet, or the stones that decorate pathways, when there is so much that we can learn about an ecosystem just by examining the kinds of rocks that populate it. There is extraordinary beauty to be found in the ways which nature's forces shape rocks, and a myriad of ways in which we can interact with them, be it through using landscapes to make art or through Stone Skipping.

It is additionally difficult to capture the intricacies of a landscape, whether through words, drawings, or maps. Pictorial depictions of the journey that a river takes takes can articulate the change that occurs over it through time, but attempts at capturing one aspect of an ecosystem will privilege it over other aspects, and a thorough or well-rounded depiction is unable to fully encapsulate the complexities of nature. Rivers as reflected on maps are but one version of reality, making it all the more important for us to encounter rivers as they are, rather than as we think they are.

Reflective Questions:

• How does the river's movement threaten or impact the stability of its landscape?
• What are some ways in which plants and rocks stabilise each other?
• What changes when a river's material base is altered by human activity?

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