Zena Holloway, Getty Images
England, 2003
An underwater portrait captures the buoyancy of babies, who are three-fourths water. That fraction becomes two-thirds as we age, yet our vital fluids remain saline, like the oceans from which life sprang.
Frans Lanting, Freelance
Brazil and Argentina, 2009
A wealth of water pours over Iguaçu Falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina. Fresh water makes up less than 3 percent of the water on our planet, but it is a staggering amount nonetheless: 9.25 million trillion gallons.
Roman Signer, Hauser & Wirth; Photo by Marek Rogowiec
Switzerland, 1986
“Wasserstiefel (Water Boots),” a famous 1986 composition by the visual artist Roman Signer (photographed by Marek Rogowiec), makes a splash and a point: Without water, we are nothing.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Japan, 2009
In Japan’s Mie Prefecture, the sacred cascade at the Tsubaki Grand Shrine washes away impurities. The Shinto ritual called misogi shuho celebrates the communion among worshipper, waterfall, and the creative life force of the universe.
Joel Sartore, National Geographic Magazine
Zoo Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 2009
Freshwater species like this Reimann’s snake-necked turtle, a New Guinea native, are under siege all over the planet, disappearing faster than their land or sea counterparts.
Randy Olson, National Geographic Stock
Russia, 2008
Fattening up for winter, a brown bear on Russia’s remote Kamchatka Peninsula waits to snatch salmon in Kuril Lake. Often pristine and protected, watersheds in this largely intact ecosystem also support a fishing industry.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Mexico, 2009
The Maya believed natural wells, such as the Xkeken cenote in Mexico’s Yucatán, led to the underworld. Then and now, water flows through human existence, scribing a line between life and death.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Laos, 2009
The new year in Laos is celebrated with a splash—so much so that in parts of Louangphrabang, a city along the Mekong River, water pressure drops to a trickle during the Boun Pi Mai Lao festival.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Japan, 2009
Tending body and soul, Taizo Noda bathes in the mineral-rich waters of an onsen, or hot spring, near Osaka, Japan. Hours spent soaking, says the 72-year-old, are “the secret of long life.”
John Stanmeyer, VII
India, 2009
Shiva lords over Suraj Water Park near Mumbai, where motifs are Indian but pleasures—like swimming and splashing on a hot day—are universal. Recreation commands a growing share of the world’s water use.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Israel, 2009
Israelis relax by the Sea of Galilee, a lake near the Golan Heights that is fed by the Jordan River and that supplies a third of Israel’s fresh water. Since 1967, Israel has blocked Syria’s access to the shoreline.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Jordan, 2009
After six years of drought, measuring sticks are useless at Jordan’s Ziglab Dam, built to catch water flowing west into the Jordan River for irrigation. Its reservoir has shrunk to a fifth of capacity and has not filled since 2003, forcing Jordan to ration water.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Israel, 2009
Shards of sunlight illuminate the Jordan River as it flows into the Sea of Galilee. The biblical stream’s headwaters are to the north, near Mount Hermon. Its final destination is the Dead Sea, some 200 miles downstream from the point of origin.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
West Bank, 2009
A source of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, water is emblematic of their unequal relationship. During dry summers, West Bank Palestinians—restricted to shallow wells by Israel’s occupation—have to buy groundwater tapped from beneath them.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Israel, 2009
At the Yardenit Baptismal site on the Upper Jordan pilgrims flock by the hundreds to immerse themselves. This section of the river between the Sea of Galilee and the Yarmukh River is the only free-flowing portion of the Jordan.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Israel, 2009
As pilgrims bathe and mill behind them, Israeli border police stand guard on the Jordan River’s western bank. Over on the Jordanian side, churches and a tourist center commemorate the traditional site of Jesus’s baptism.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Israel, 2009
Girls from a West Bank village cool off in the briny waters of the Dead Sea, the world’s deepest saltwater lake. Naturally buoyant waters make it a favorite of bathers. Yet levels are dropping more than three feet a year.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Israel, 2009
At a water park in Tiberias, Israelis bask in the resource’s relative abundance. A 2009 World Bank report said Israelis use four times as much water per capita as Palestinians. Israel has disputed this, saying its citizens use only twice as much.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Israel, 2009
A bird’s-eye view of the Dead Sea reveals a bleached expanse once covered by water. The level of the inland sea has dropped some 70 feet since 1978 due to evaporation and the greatly diminished flow of its main tributary, the Jordan River.
Paolo Pellegrin, Magnum Photos
Israel, 2009
Mesh-covered banana plantations like this one abound along both sides of the Jordan River. The tropical crop is lucrative, but it requires eight times as much water as tomatoes, which are also locally grown.
Dick Durrance II, National Geographic Stock
Bangladesh, 1972
During a 1972 drought in Bangladesh, a farmer dispenses precious water plant by plant. Rain is a major source of water in this country, as is the Jamuna River, which begins life in the glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau.
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
Nepal, 2009
The snowy peaks of the Himalaya are part of a freshwater cache that courses down to a vast populace: two billion people. But warming temperatures and fast-melting ice could cause disasters downstream.
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
China, 2009
Tourists snap memories against the dirty, melting ice of Mingyong Glacier in China’s Yunnan Province. As temperatures have warmed, the glacier has receded a third of a mile over the past decade, and its meltwater is no longer drinkable.
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
China, 2009
A Tibetan boy (center) flings prayer cards into the Yellow River during a Buddhist ceremony in China’s increasingly desertified Qinghai Province. Desert now covers one-sixth of the Tibetan Plateau.
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
China, 2009
This child of Tibetan nomads lives in a concrete hovel near Huashixia, China, where grasslands are greatly degraded. Tens of thousands of herders have been moved to such communities, only to face unemployment and a difficult adjustment to a more sedentary lifestyle.
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
India, 2009
In a parched Delhi slum, men swarm a tanker to siphon precious water. “If you throw money here,” says a local 16-year-old named Vinay, “no one would have time to grab it. Water is more important for us.”
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
Tajikistan, 2009
Launching themselves off a drainage pipe, young men in a village in southwestern Tajikistan cool off in the only swimming hole around: an irrigation canal. This canal likely feeds cotton, a water-intensive crop that is the country’s main export.
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
China, 2009
Near Chongqing, China, in the industrial town of Luohuangshi, a husband and wife fish in the Yangtze River. Waterways like this one are lifelines for some of Asia’s most densely settled areas, including China’s thirsty metropolises.
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
Bangladesh, 2009
Bangladeshis in Sirajganj haul boatloads of bagged sand to reinforce a levee eroded by the flooding of the Jamuna River. If melting ice swells the area’s rivers, such stopgap fixes may become more common.
Jonas Bendiksen, Magnum Photos
China, 2009
In Chongqing—a burgeoning Chinese municipality whose 31 million people tap the Yangtze River for their needs—coal-fired, carbon-dioxide-spewing power plants compete with family farms for water.
Lynn Johnson, National Geographic Magazine
Ethopia 2009
In Shekana, Ethiopia, Halike Berisha must fill her jug from a contaminated reservoir. Access to clean water is not solely a rural problem, but the challenges of delivering it are most daunting in remote places.
Lynn Johnson, National Geographic Magazine
Ethopia 2009
In pursuit of water, the girl with the green ladle routinely walks three hours to and from her Ethiopian village of Foro. Females here spend most of their lives fetching water; boys are exempted from the job when they turn seven or eight.
Lynn Johnson, National Geographic Magazine
Kenya 2009
Tribal Gabra women in northern Kenya may need five hours a day to lug jerry cans laden with murky water across the desert. A lingering drought has pushed this already arid region to a full-blown water crisis.
Lynn Johnson, National Geographic Magazine
Ethiopia 2009
To this end, NGOs are working to bring clean water to forgotten places, using technology—like a sand dam to capture rainwater in Ethiopia, where some women must wrest drops from muddy seeps —while ensuring that locals are involved in designing, building, and maintaining water projects."
Kitra Cahana, National Geographic Magazine
Nevada, USA, 2009
Shaped like a water drop, this 17-foot-tall steel “meditation space” was made by Kate Raudenbush for Nevada’s annual Burning Man event. Her goal is “to bring awareness to the element of water on our planet and its vital importance to our evolutionary balance.”
Barry Yanowitz, Freelance
New York, USA, 2008
A 90-foot-tall cascade spills beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. In 2008 artist Olafur Eliasson installed the public-art piece, one of his four “New York City Waterfalls,” to celebrate “the physicality of water.”
Edward Burtynsky
California, USA, 2009
Once the city’s main water source, the Los Angeles River is now a concrete channel fed by storm drains. City residents rely on water pumped from hundreds of miles away.
Edward Burtynsky
California, USA, 2009
Grass is not an option in Salton City, which survives on water imported from the Colorado River. With 20 million more residents expected in California by 2050, the state’s quest for water is never over.
Edward Burtynsky
California, USA, 2009
As developments such as Discovery Bay increase in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, so does the flood hazard. More than a million people now live behind delta levees, which are susceptible to increasingly severe coastal storms.
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Enceladus, 2005
A color-enhanced image of Saturn’s moon Enceladus reveals a mosaic of fractures, folds, and ridges. Vapor-spraying jets erupt from at least eight sources near the moon’s “tiger stripes” (bottom center), also called sulci.
ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
Mars, 2005
Surveying the red planet from orbit, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spied this residual water ice in a 22-mile-wide crater. The hollow’s thousand-foot-tall wall shades the frozen patch from sunlight and prevents it from vaporizing.
Joel Sartore, National Geographic Magazine
Conservation Fisheries, Tennessee, 2009
The Spotted Darter (Etheostoma maculatum) is a native of the Elk River in West Virginia. Its habitat and breeding grounds are threatened by siltation, like that caused by the Sutton Reservoir on the Elk River's main channel.
Joel Sartore, National Geographic Magazine
Conservation Fisheries, Tennessee, 2009
Ouachita madtoms (Noturus lachneri) live only in the Saline River in Arkansas.
Joel Sartore, National Geographic Magazine
Tennessee, 2009
Biologists from Conservation Fisheries look for the federally-endangered Smoky Madtom in Abrams Creek, a stream that they stocked after it was poisoned in the 1950's.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Turkey, 2009
To be baptized is to be born into a new life in Christ, according to the Greek Orthodox Church. Seven-month-old Stellios Theodore Gikas will be dipped three times during a ceremony at the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George in Istanbul, Turkey.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Turkey, 2009
Muslims perform wudu, the ritual washing before prayers, at Istanbul’s Beyazit Mosque. “Cleanliness is half of faith,” Muhammad told followers.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Ukraine, 2009
A Hasidic Jew in Ukraine immerses himself before Rosh Hashanah in a quarry pool that serves as a mikvah, a body of water used for spiritual cleansing.
John Stanmeyer, VII
India, 2009
India’s holiest river, the Ganges, is scribbled with light from floating oil lamps during the Ganga Dussehra festival in Haridwar. Hindus near death often bathe in the river; some are later cremated beside it and have their ashes scattered in its depths.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Maine, USA, 2009
A cross hewn in the ice of Maine’s Kennebec River by parishioners of St. Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Church commemorates the baptism of Christ. Water from the Epiphany carving will be used to bless the church.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Haiti, 2009
Vodou and Christianity meld at the Saut d’Eau waterfall in Ville Bonheur, Haiti, where believers pray to the Virgin Mary and welcome spirits said to inhabit the falls.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Haiti, 2009
At Haiti’s Saut d’Eau waterfall, pilgrims bathe and converse in the icy waters during the festival of the Virgin of Miracles, a celebration that honors a reported apparition of the Virgin Mary on top of a palm tree.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Laos, 2009
A woman launches an offering on the Mekong River, known to Laotians as the “mother of waters.” The occasion is Boun Pi Mai Lao, the New Year’s celebration, in April.
Jack Dykinga, National Geographic Magazine
Colorado, USA, 2009
To effectively transport precious water, farmers in the arid Southwest have long shared community-operated waterways. This acequia is the 150-year-old People’s Ditch in Colorado’s San Luis Valley.
Camille Seaman, Freelance
Antarctica, 2006
Severed from the edge of Antarctica, this iceberg might float for years as it melts and releases its store of fresh water into the sea. The water molecules will eventually evaporate, condense, and recycle back to Earth as precipitation.
Thomas Havisham, Panos
Angola, 2005
Peddling clean well water for 10 cents a bag, this seller will have no problem finding a buyer in a slum in Luanda, Angola. In 2006 the prevalence of contaminated water in the city led to one of Africa’s worst cholera epidemics, with 80,000 Angolans sickened.
Lynn Johnson, National Geographic Magazine
Ethiopia, 2009
In the Foro district of Ethiopia, rocks cover a family latrine, and a stick acts as a handle. Surveys show that the hygiene-education efforts of WaterAid, an NGO, are working here: Latrine use has risen from 6 to 25 percent since December 2007.
Lynn Johnson, National Geographic Magazine
Ethiopia, 2009
Installed by the NGO WaterAid, makeshift wash stations like this one—a water bottle fastened to the exterior of a grass hut, with soap nearby—are appearing in Ethiopian villages, where lack of sanitation can be as dire a problem as water scarcity.
Lynn Johnson, National Geographic Magazine
Ethiopia, 2009
In Ticho, Ethiopia, a drawing of a man defecating elicits laughter from Hiruut Nigusee, who uses the picture in her hygiene classes. At first students were embarrassed, but now they use the latrine, wash their hands, and suffer fewer bouts of diarrhea.
Gerd Ludwig, National Geographic Magazine
California, USA, 2009
In 2007, high levels of bromate—a carcinogen formed when bromide and chlorine react with sunlight—were found in Los Angeles’s seven-acre, 58-million-gallon Ivanhoe Reservoir. Today, three million black plastic balls help deflect UV rays.
Hans Strand, Freelance
Iceland, 2006
Swirling seaward, branches of the bountiful Kolgrima River inscribe the flatlands near Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest glacier. Milky tones in the water are from pale silt; the blue is the reflection of the sky.
Amit Dave, Reuters
India, 2003
Parched Indian villagers mob a vast well in Natwargadh, Gujarat. In this drought-prone western state, yearly monsoon rains can total less than eight inches, and summer temperatures have topped 115°F.
Theo Allofs, Corbis
Australia, 2006
Brown with sediment loosed by seasonal rains, Australia’s King River snakes through the coastal mudflats of the Kimberley, a remote northwestern region. In the dry months of May to September, the 76-mile meander lies bare.
Tim A. Hetherington, Panos
United Arab Emirates, 2008 (All)
Water towers are reminders of how we engineer structures to manage our most vital resource. These towers in the United Arab Emirates pressurize water to service the arid federation’s plumbing.
Mark Thiessen, National Geographic Staff
Washington DC, USA, 2009
Mixing a powder made by Pur into diluted water kills bacteria and makes dirt, metals, and parasites clump together so they can be filtered out, leaving crystal-clear water in 30 minutes. Aid groups distribute this product to help combat waterborne diseases.
John Stanmeyer, VII
Japan, 2009
Located near Tokyo, the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel attracts tourists with its temple-like design, but its purpose is to prevent major waterways and rivers from overflowing during heavy rains and typhoons.
