" The beds of rivers, remaining dry during a part of the year, are converted into torrents, whenever great rain falls on the heights. The sward and the moss disappearing with the brushwoods from the sides of the mountains, the waters falling in rain are no longer impeded in their course, and instead of slowly augmenting the level of the rivers by progressive filtrations, they furrow during heavy showers the sides of the hills, beat down the loosened soil and form these sudden inundations that devastate the country. Hence it results that the destruction of forests, the want of permanent springs and the existence of torrents are three phenomena closely connected together. Countries that are situated in opposite hemispheres, Lombardy bordered by the chain of the Alps and Lower Peru inclosed between the Pacific Ocean and the Cordillera of the Andes, exhibit striking proofs of the justness of this assertion. "

― Ramachandra Guha , Environmentalism: A Global History