A catchment's surrounding environment is not limited to towns and cities on the periphery of the catchment. It is likely that a far wider, much larger economy is associated with the catchment community and its economy. That wider economy could be the state, province or nation in which the catchment sits. Recall our discussion of the Nile River basin - the basin is Egypt, the rest is desert. Egypt would not be a country without the Nile. The Mississippi-Missouri River basin in the United States is not all of the United States, but nevertheless a great slice of it. The United States would be a different country - smaller, weaker and probably unrecognisable - without this river basin. How things have changed from the time of Huck Finn and Torn Sawyer! In the twenty-first century, the global economy subsumes (consumes!) all but the tiniest catchments. Little Swanport catchment is a tiny one, but read on to discover that it has important relationships to the outside world.