the.com/watercourse
Earth's oldest engineer, sketching valleys with nothing but patience and gravity.
means A natural or artificial channel through which water flows — a stream, river, brook, or canal — or the course such water takes.
from A transparent compound of "water" and "course," both old English-rooted words. "Course" comes through Old French "cours" from Latin "cursus," meaning "a running" (from "currere," to run — the same root that gallops through "current," "courier," and "cursive"). So a watercourse is, quite literally, "the running of water" — the path water takes when it runs its course.
defined routeLegally a bed and banks, even when bone dry
path of least resistanceCarves canyons by always taking the easy way
ephemeral kindSome flow only after rain, ghosts on maps
meander mechanicsCurves tighten until rivers strangle themselves into oxbow lakes
water rightsWhole legal wars fought over who drinks first