Living by the Symbolic River: Landscape Effects of Post-Industrial Water Narratives of the Susquehanna River

This paper examines ways in which human values toward surface water, especially large rivers, are relevant to land-use decisions in the watersheds. The study’s focus is the symbolic riverscape constructed by residents local to the Susquehanna River at the confluence of its branches in central Pennsylvania. The main analytical tool is the cultural landscape, a conceptualization of the ways in which alteration of the physical world is the product of human value systems. The paper traces the symbolic weights apparent in discourses about the Susquehanna River with regard to environmental use and abuse in the watershed, through qualitative analysis of public expressions of meaning and valuation. The conclusions emphasize an evolution of the meaning of the river toward a central role as an integral and intricate part of the human experience on the landscape, rather than its earlier role as one functional part of the economic system. Land-use actions consonant with that new value are now favored. This work is offered to suggest that land system science, which is highly effective in understanding altered natural systems and their consequences, can benefit from a fuller engagement with more-intimate human aspects of landscape such as symbols, meaning, and narrative.