A watershed is the name for an exit point of a basin that collects surface water from rain or melting ice. Many big rivers such as the Mississippi and the Amazon have them. A watershed consists of not only the springs, creeks, brooks, rivers, ponds and lakes, but also the land surrounding these water bodies. The reason this concept is so important is that most of the pollution that impacts our waterways occurs on land.

Jeff Rich's work on the environmental stress of rivers flowing through Tennessee and North Carolina in the US was made on film, with either a 4×5 or 8×10 camera.

Rich chose to start the project with the 213-mile-long French Broad river since it was close to his home in Asheville, North Carolina. He expanded and start photographing the Tennessee river, then the Mississippi River south of St. Louis. His work documents the effects of development, exploitation and abuse amid rich Southern landscapes, beautifully exposing the devastating toll of environmental degradation.