Over most of North America the land is bumpy even Kansas, Texas, and Florida are bumpy. These bumps vary from a couple to thousands of feet.
When water arrives from rain, melting snow/ice, or flowing from a higher bump, it always finds the lowest spot it can. At that low spot it becomes a
puddle or if it can keeps moving. Always seeking a lower spot becoming brooks, and streams, and creeks, and rivers, until it evaporates or gets to
the ocean. There it evaporates, forms clouds, moves back over land to go around again. While it’s moving over bumps it’s nourishing the land,
the vegetation, and animals, who can all use it until it gets to the sea... unless it gets poisoned.
When Europeans came to Philadelphia there were lots of bumps and little babbling brooks. Now brooks are replaced with babbling politicians.
As the city was built they smoothed out the bumps for buildings and streets. Paved paradise and put up a parking lot, if you will.
The creeks left for runoff were polluted, trash choked, mosquito nurseries, so eventually disappeared to be replaced by sewers and storm drains.
The only water nourishing plants and animals is piped in.
Now this is just a tiny patch of North America but the pattern seem be repeated for every city and suburb.
The rest of the land, the rural areas where this doesn’t happen we’ll just have to pollute.
