Discusses the engineering feats of the earliest canal-builders, the communities that grew up around the watermills, how rivers powered the industrial revolution, the wildlife that water supports, and the many literary and cultural connections of water. Beautifully illustrated with a mixture of colour photographs, archive images, and artworks from wildlife illustrator Bryn Edwards, Waterways takes stock of the state of the state of Britain's streams, rivers and canals in the early 2000s and looks forward to a time when we might embrace a deeper cultural and environmental understanding of this life-giving source.