This article is The cry of a stream,…

I am a stream; I am a water; I am life itself; I am not a channel; I’m not never concrete. I am living net which are clad in spine with soul, sound, smell, taste, colour, air. I am a system with my habitats; my water kisses the earth, there are life on my waterfront. I’m not a concrete channel. Precipitation waters and underground spring waters accumulate in me; leads on my slope. I am rarely single-armed, usually multi-armed; just like a tree; My arms are like branches coming out of the trunk, my roots are also groundwater,..It merges with my dry and flows branches in the main collector. We go to the low level at the lowest level waiting for us, we become a lake; we sail to the seas, we become the ocean.

I am a stream. I am not just water, I exist on my shores with a rich variety of habitats. I exist with a rich variety of habitats on my shores. Sometimes I am looked barren, sometimes I am seen rocks too. I am shaped, diversified and enriched by geology, soil and climate. With this wealth, I create unique l idiosyncratic living spaces. You take advantage of me in many ways. I’m not just a stream, I’m a life system beyond the stream. What It makes me, are the hills and my slopes that bring the water to me from the water dividing line.

I am a stream. I’ m stream together with the soil and plants that bring my water from these slopes to me by filtering it cleanly, and with my flood areas, buffers, aquatic lives (riparian zones) that I’ve created on the waterfront for years.
I am a stream, I exist with my lifes on the water shores. I am a home for an insect, bird, wolf, lamb, bear, turtle etc. to many. I become food for flora, fauna, and even human beings, I become life for every living thing.

I am water in stream form; I am a cycle, the water cycle that sustains life. I am the cycle. I serve to life the water which I collect. that is, I serve you… I feed the soil, I feed the plants; I rise by evaporation and evapotranspiration. I become a cloud in the atmosphere. While ,it becomes denser with every increasing sweating and evaporation, I becomes rain, and I descend to the ground again, I become life on the earth.

I am living energy. My biggest helper is the climate. Hot shapes me; There is a balance and order that has been developing between us for centuries. This is not a one-time thing. I always work this way everywhere.

I am like a machine; I am a machine formed by geomorphology over centuries or even thousands of years. I have a functioning system in which aquatic life is formed on my shores, shaped by the hill line determined by the water separation line and slopes. This is called a basin. I am one with my basin. Yes, I am the result of a natural system operating through the interplay of morphology, climate and habitat in a long time…

I have natural physique and mechanics. I work with my basin. My whole is the basin. I am a collection of large surfaces until the sea and the lake reach the ocean with a single outlet at the downstream, collecting the underground/surface waters from the upper elevations to the lower elevations, carrying them from my arms to my main collector with my slopes that shape the direction of the flow from the upstream to the downstream I am the backbone of the aquatic ecosystem. Not only do I collect the water, I also ensure that the water comes clean. I am a system, It’s my vegetation and my aquatic life that cleanses me. You benefit as clean water, clean air, healthy food from me; You can swim in the natural beaches I have created and have fun by doing water sports. It is also my aesthetic. I become the subject of poets and painters in my landscapes and I will have many more benefits for you that I can’t count…

Due to the physics of nature, I accumulate on surfaces at the lowest elevations of the lands. These valley floor areas are not suitable for human settlement and urban active recreation areas. Valley floors are natural habitats of aquatic life. These areas are active habitats of aquatic life. But these areas are passive areas for Humans. these areas are dangerous for human habitation. These areas are the places where I collect and overflow water at the smallest precipitation and at the same time the air collapses. These areas are unhealthy environments for you. At the same time, these areas are physical corridors where air and water move, which balances and improves environmental health for a city. Yes, I am a system; I am a natural machine working on a basin scale.

I know that, you don’t want to see the physical structure of my natural workings in the Anthropocene. You scapegoated climate change instead of seeing your own fault. I understand this from my natural structure that got sick or even lost because of your wrong land decisions. I see that you do not have a holistic water law, management and above all, planning awareness integrated into the biome. The destruction caused by every wrong land use decision and practice contrary to my natural morphology reflected to you as floods, overflows and air pollution. Every unnatural change causes your epigenetics to change. The greatest danger will be drought and hunger. Fauna and flora, which cannot find life without water, will disappear. I can’t get them water; the water that reaches my arms does not reach clean either. You have destroyed the natural filter habitat, you didn’t care about the lifes on my waterfront; I cannot meet the soil. You have cut off the connection between my underground/surface waters and the soil and you endanger your biodiversity. First of all, insects, birds, etc. from life. living things are withdrawn; and you’re getting more and more deserted. You imprisoned me in concrete. Even the rocks were not as brutal as concrete. Now, polluted air settles on the lowest elevations, my water is dirty, it stinks; I’m black, without oxygen, and I’m sick. And I inflict sickness on you because of you. Since my waterways are closed due to your incorrect land use decisions, I accumulate on your roads, squares, parks and building foundations in your cities and even in rural areas. I am negatively affecting your life.

I’m a stream; I lost, I’m looking for my way. So far I told you about my watery condition. Sometimes you see me dry. But my waterbed is obvious. The water of my waterbed sometimes appears only in the rainy season and then disappears; sometimes it appears after many years I am also attached to the main body like other flowing branches, I exist even though I am not seen. I depend on the relationship of my basin with the climate. This doesn’t mean that, I’m not a stream. I am your safety valve. My general operating principle is that I am one of the components of the basin system as an integral part of the stream system. As a dry stream, I am appeared and perceived with the inter-basin relationship in a holistic ecosystem . Each stream basin is unique with its own characteristics, they are not alike.

You have destroyed me with the unnatural multiparticul decisions and practices of your settlements. You have destroyed me with your unnatural piecemeal land decisions and practices in the settlements. I lost my natural stream form, my waterbed, my valleys, my slope, my habitats. You destroyed my connection with life, that is, with you. And you called it urbanization, you called it the modern age. And now you have me projected under the name of “LIFE VALLEY”. As the valley of life, you have served me to your community. I don’t live there I don’t have the components that make me up. I am not in that valley of life. You have imprisoned me in concrete with your urban pressures. Neither my arms nor I can reach them, we cannot reach each other. My valleys, soil and habitats have been destroyed. you imprisoned me. You have done the impossible.

My advice is to read the physics and mechanics of nature in accordance with your Anthropocene age. For your sustainable economy, you should plan your land use decisions in accordance with the physics of nature with a focus on life. When you read the physics and mechanics of nature correctly, you will realize that nature tells you how to organize a healthy, safe sustainable settlement. Otherwise, when you cannot see and read the basin-based streams as a system, you lose your living environment, become unhealthy, become a desert. You endanger your ecology-economy sustainability with your own creation; you are creating your annihilation.

I am a system that lives with its basin. I’m beyond what you think of as a stream.
I am your life itself in the form of a stream running with a basin system I am my water. I wish you to see, think, understand and liberate me.

Streams from the Biome,…

The cry of a stream,... 
HEAR ME,... 

References
Dinç, H. ve Bölen, F., (2014) “The Physical Structure of Streams in Istanbul”- İstanbul -İçme Suyu Havza Alanı Dışında Kalan Derelerin Fiziki Yapısı, TMMOB Şehir Plancıları Odası, Planlama, 24(2), pp. 107-120, doi: 10.5505/planlama. 2014.97269, 2015.

Dinç, H. (2015) “ Transformation of Streams in Istanbul and The ımpact of Landuse”– “İstanbul Derelerinin Fiziki Değişimi ve Arazi Kullanım İlişkisi”, Doktora Tezi, İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Ens. İstanbul, Türkiye. https://polen.itu.edu.tr/xmlui/handle/11527/16620.
Dinç, H. (2019) “The Analyses of the Physical Effect of Land Use Decisions on Stream Systems and its Reflection on Urban Life: The Risk Evaluation of Flood and Overflow in İstanbul” -“Arazi Kullanım Kararlarının Dere Sistemleri Üzerinde Fiziki Etkisinin Analizi ve Kentsel Yaşama Yansıması -İstanbul’da su baskını, sel ve taşkın risk değerlendirmesi, TMMOB Şehir Plancıları Odası, Planlama Dergisi, Planlama, 2019; 29(2);147-170, doi:10.14744/planlama.2019.05706