Headwaters have no true point of origin, only dispersed accumulation

Evidence

Not only that, it was still impossible to say where my drinking water came from. In every watershed there are headwaters, the closest thing to the origin of a creek. On Google Maps, I traced the North Fork Mokelumne River up the mountains to a place called Highland Lakes. But along its course, the river is also fed by creeks coming in from different locations. And even if I had gone to the headwaters of Mokelumne Creek, I would have searched in vain for its point of origin, or even a bounded area. Like bioregions at large, headwaters defy delineation, since every creek starts as the dispersed accumulation of snow or rain, trickling underground into streams that join larger streams that later emerge as springs—a gradual collecting of pathways that looks like a delta in reverse. So where did the water come from? It arrived from somewhere else. In the Sierra Nevada, much of the snowfall comes from atmospheric rivers. Sometimes, those atmospheric rivers come from the Philippines. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 507

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates ‘headwaters’ and bioregion as concepts that structurally resist delineation or bounded origin.