Robert Macfarlane traveled to Chennai, India, to investigate the relationship between urban development and river systems through the lens of what he calls “ghosts, monsters, and angels” (124). The ghosts represent the rivers that have been killed to enable city growth, the monsters are the destructive forms these dead rivers take during floods and cyclones, and the angels are the activists and naturalists working to protect and revive the waterways. Macfarlane’s primary guide is Yuvan Aves, a 27-year-old teacher, naturalist, and water activist whose personal transformation from abuse survivor to environmental advocate parallels the potential restoration of Chennai’s damaged ecosystems.

Macfarlane shares some of Yuvan’s life story, which is marked by resilience and transformation. At 16, he fled an abusive household after years of systematic violence from his stepfather, who beat him with various objects and once prevented him from seeking medical treatment for a snake bite. The stepfather resented Yuvan’s academic success and once forced him to burn his biology textbook page by page. When his stepfather threatened to prevent him from attending school—Yuvan’s only escape—he ran away with just a few rupees. Yuvan found refuge at Pathashaala, a residential school surrounded by traditional water storage systems called eris. During this four-year period, he transformed from a traumatized teenager into a dedicated healer of both humans and ecosystems. At Pathashaala, he became a self-taught naturalist, changed his name to include “Aves” (meaning avian) to honor birds, and developed expertise in handling snakes.

Chennai exemplifies the global urban water crisis through its three main rivers: the Kosasthalaiyar, Cooum, and Adyar. These waterways, which once supported human life for 1.5 million years, now represent some of the most polluted water bodies in the world. The city’s population explosion from 500,000 in 1901 to 6.5 million today has created a density crisis. This growth has resulted in an estimated 55 million liters of effluents and sewage being discharged daily into the waterways. Scientific studies document the devastating ecological collapse: Fish species in the Cooum River declined from 49 in 1949 to zero by 2000, and mass die-offs in the Adyar estuary in 2014 and 2017 left tens of thousands of sardines and mullets too toxic for human consumption.

Macfarlane describes the sophisticated traditional water management system that once sustained the region for thousands of years. The eri system consisted of human-constructed water tanks with rounded berms and intricate channel networks that allowed water to cascade between catchments during floods or redistribution periods. These structures, along with various other water storage systems, formed a comprehensive hydrological architecture adapted to the region’s extreme seasonal variations between monsoon abundance and drought scarcity.

The Dravidian empires that ruled southern India from the 3rd century BCE placed water at the sacred center of their culture, contrasting with the fire worship of the northern kingdoms. Ancient Tamil documents included specific curses for water pollution, and the language developed rich aquatic vocabulary and proverbs that reflect deep water literacy.

The systematic destruction of Chennai’s water systems began in the early 19th century under British colonial rule, accelerating dramatically in recent decades. The massive Pallikaranai Marsh, originally covering 90 square miles, was reduced to just five square miles. Streams connecting various wetland areas have been choked with garbage and blocked by development, eliminating the natural flood control systems that once protected the region.

This ecological destruction has created a brutal cycle of flood and drought that disproportionately harms the city’s poorest communities. During dry seasons from April to July, water supplies are periodically shut off, forcing citizens to store water in containers and rely on standpipes or water trucks. In 2019, the entire city ran out of water, requiring neighboring states to send emergency convoys. Conversely, during monsoon seasons, the constrained rivers burst destructively into urban areas, with severe flooding occurring in 1903, 1918, 1943, 1976, 1985, 1999, 2005, and most devastatingly in 2015, when the city was declared a disaster zone.

The narrative includes examples of pioneering legal efforts to recognize rivers as living entities with rights. In 2017, judges in Uttarakhand High Court declared that the Ganges and Yamuna rivers should be recognized as living entities with legal standing, inspired by New Zealand’s Whanganui River Claims Settlement Act. This led to activists like Brij Khandelwal attempting to file criminal charges for the attempted murder of rivers through pollution, though police refused to take such cases seriously.

More recently, a Chennai High Court judgment recognized nature’s rights across Tamil Nadu, with Justice S. Srimathy declaring that environmental protection constitutes a basic human right and criticizing existing legal frameworks as inadequate for addressing ecological destruction. These legal developments represent attempts to shift from anthropocentric toward ecological jurisprudence, though their practical effectiveness remains limited.

Macfarlane accompanied Yuvan and local schoolchildren to Vedanthangal, India’s oldest waterbird sanctuary. This site demonstrates water’s life-making power through its support of tens of thousands of birds representing dozens of species, from painted storks and pelicans to various egrets and ibises. However, even this relatively pristine location faces threats from industrial pollution, particularly from Sun Pharma factory, which discharges toluene and other toxins into the sanctuary.

The contrast between healthy and degraded water systems became stark when they visited Ennore Creek, a shallow backwater of the Kosasthalaiyar River that was literally erased from official maps in 1997 to allow unrestricted industrial development. This bureaucratic sleight of hand enabled the establishment of “Red Category industries,” including petrochemical plants, coal-fired power stations, and chemical factories in what had been a complex wetland ecosystem. The consequences include blistered skin for traditional fisherfolk wading in toxic water, villages surrounded by factories, children playing in radioactive fly ash, and elimination of natural flood protection for approximately one million people.

The narrative concludes with an all-night turtle patrol on Chennai beach, where volunteers worked to protect nesting Olive Ridley sea turtles. These ancient creatures, whose species has survived 120 million years, now face unprecedented threats from ship strikes, ghost nets, habitat destruction, and climate change. The patrol worked to relocate turtle eggs from vulnerable beach locations to protected hatcheries. Climate change poses particular challenges to sea turtles because their sex is determined by incubation temperature, with the critical threshold at 31.5 degrees Celsius. Rising temperatures mean that nearly all hatchlings are now female, threatening future breeding populations. The turtle conservation work represents broader themes of resilience and adaptation in damaged ecosystems, as volunteers work to maintain ancient reproductive cycles within increasingly hostile urban environments.

Macfarlane presents Chennai as a case study in urban ecological crisis while simultaneously highlighting sources of hope through activist work and natural resilience. He argues that recognizing the agency and aliveness of rivers requires fundamental shifts in legal, political, and imaginative frameworks, moving beyond anthropocentric thinking toward what the author calls “terraqueous” literacy that dissolves traditional boundaries between land and water, human and more-than-human life (183).

This section concludes with Macfarlane’s return to England, where he visits Nine Wells Wood with his son Will during an unusually early spring. After months of heavy rain, the local springs that had nearly dried up the previous summer were flowing strongly again. Father and son launched leaf boats on the spring water and felt the physical sensation of the springs’ pulse, with Will describing it simply as “life” (191).