Water element

Tara on Tour

I've reached the south of England and am close to the area where the Third Tara will be placed. It's clear that water-related problems affect far more places in the world than problems arising from the extreme activity of other elements. But it's also clear that all the elements are interrelated, and whilst one element may manifest in an extreme way (through floods, monsoons, tsunamis, etc), it is the imbalance in the relationship between the elements that is often the source of the problems that occur.

With respect to water, it seems that the balance between the life-sustaining and life-threatening qualities of water is particularly delicate. Many people choose to live in and around water: in fact over half the world's population lives by the sea, on rivers, estuaries or close to water. Not only does this traditionally provide water for domestic use, it has also been one of the major ways in which goods can be transported and economies can trade. It is perhaps not surprising therefore to find that problems with water dominate the lives of so many people.

Many civilisations have grown up around rivers and low-lying deltas: Egypt, China and Bangladesh are all parts of the world that depend heavily on their rivers, but are frequently at the mercy of their unpredictable behaviour. In 1988, 62% of the land in Bangladesh was under water when the Rivers Brahmaputra and Ganges burst their banks, pouring through villages, uprooting millions of people and killing over 2000. Last year, heavy rains and floodwater from India and Nepal caused some of the worst flooding Bangladesh has seen.

In China, the problems are even worse. Millions of people live along the River Yangtze and the Yellow River: flooding is common,and often severe. So bad is it for the peasants living close to the Yellow River that the river is known as "China's Sorrow". Regular flooding of the land generates very fertile soil, which is one of the great attractions of such areas, but the price to pay during monsoon times is often enormous. In 1991, the River Yangtze flooded an area 4/5 the size of Britain, killing thousands and making over a million people homeless.

Apart from the obvious devastation of loss of life, home, crops, animals and property, flooding brings other problems. In particular, disease. Without fresh water supplies, and with sewage systems (however primitive) ruptured, contaminated water becomes a real source of danger. Many more people die from the complications associated with floods than they do from the floods themselves.

The great engineering breakthrough of the last century produced the world's first dams. These promised to solve some of the problems of flooding and to exert some control over water's unpredictable and devastating power. The Old Aswan Dam, for example, significantly reduced the water problems along the Nile Delta in Egypt. It produced hydroelectric power, water for industry, sustainable agriculture throughout the year and an increase in the availability of safe domestic water. What no one foresaw were the long-term effects of controlling the rivers to that degree: Man's ingenuity had once again stopped short of understanding the full picture and what had seemed a blessing was being suddenly being hailed a curse as coastlines eroded, the sardine industry failed, soil lost its fertility and plagues of dangerous parasites were spawned.

Providing adequate protection for people and land on a long-term basis when it comes to water has so far proved an impossible task.

For those of us living in the Western world, floods have undoubtedly been a feature of life, but rarely on the scale of such countries as Egypt and the East. This may be about to change. As sea levels rise with the impact of global warming, so many of us face a very real battle with encroaching seas and rising water levels in rivers. In Britain, the area most under threat is the south-east of England, which is already slowly sinking into the sea, but which would suffer huge losses of land were sea levels to rise even by a little. Parts of Norfolk, Sussex, Essex, Kent are all vulnerable - and as the sea flows into the River Thames, even London will become waterlogged.

The River Thames has a long and colourful history; and it passes through some of the most beautiful towns and countryside in the south-east. It's a river that I know very well and have lived on for much of my life. It seems poignant to have chosen this part of the world, and this river in particular, for the placing of the Third Tara. Over the next week or so, I will be making something of a pilgrimage to various important points along the Thames, discovering some of its history, its beauty and its significance as a lifeline for what is currently one of the most affluent areas of the country.