Southwestern USA is quite arid, with many areas where access to water is scarce. In Joshua Tree National Park, for example, you'll find no water of any kind. You have to bring in all of your own drinking water, and no showers or flush toilets exist within the park boundaries. In the Grand Canyon, another arid region, taps are common and easy to find; however, signs are posted everywhere asking visitors to be conscious of their water use.
"The very last thing we need to do is clean the ocean." David Katz's controversial opener leads him into a discussion about how social plastic as a form of payment may be the solution to eliminating plastic pollution at the source.
The two other brothers kept on running, all the water now spilling from the barrels. That is how the Amazon river started.
Unnamed
Water is of high importance in Māori culture in New Zealand. For Māori, water (‘wai’) is the essence of all life and all water has ‘mauri’, or life force. When it comes to sustainably planning, developing, and implementing innovation in the water sector, Māori are just one example of a culture with strong ties to water that need to be considered.
6-pack holders are so common; a convenient way to get our packs of soda or beer from the store to our fridge. But ocean-wise and innovative people have created alternatives to the plastic rings!
There are still so many unknowns about the ocean; so many fascinating places to be explored and fantastical creatures to observe. For any new divers out there, my plea to you is simply to be as gentle on the ocean as possible, even if it's not so gentle on us.
In that very moment, Isabel understood how her life, like that of her mother and all her grandmothers before her, would be measured by a pail of water.
Nancy J. Haws
Roughly one third of the Netherlands in below sea-level, and the country has experienced many floods that caused evacuations, destruction of farmland, and death. Room for the River is a program designed to give water a safe place to go in the event of flooding.
In his 2017 TED Talk, Ashton Cofer explains the groups plan to make activated carbon, used in water purification systems, out of the carbon that exists in Styrofoam.
In his 2009 TED Talk, Michael Pritchard discusses his water filter technology designed to create safe, drinkable water out of the dirtiest water imaginable.
Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
W. H. Auden
The cultural values and traditions related to water can vary dramatically around the world based on changes in country, religion, economy, political tensions, and environmental conditions. These ties can be of extreme importance for ensuring sustainability in any interventions made in the water sector. This series will highlight the many different connections between water and culture in an effort to raise awareness about this particular topic.
Flip flop art is made from old, discarded flip flops are up-cycled into incredible designs, and one of the most well known organizations to do this is an enterprise in Kenya called Ocean Sole.
This video is packed with wisdom about perception, gratitude, and conscious thinking. Wallace challenges all of us to alter our natural default setting and increase our awareness of the world around us.
For centuries the Mekong River looked after herself, as she looked after us. Today, we must learn to look after her in return. We are all sons and daughters of the water.
Charles Bautista
Rain gardens are exactly what they sound like: gardens. Only they're more like specially-engineered superhero gardens. Rain gardens are designed to infiltrate more water than a normal garden so that they can reduce stormwater runoff volumes and limit urban flooding. They are also capable of reducing some of the contamination in the water before it enters other water supplies like surface water or groundwater.
In 2015, I was lucky enough to spend a month volunteering with a marine conservation project in Cambodia. Most days, we were scuba diving three times a day, every day. This meant gearing up in wet suits and oxygen tanks three separate times. This meant spending hours breathing through a regulator. This meant bathing in sea water and dealing with the tangled mess of hair later. This was my heaven.
In 2013, Peru's University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) created an innovative billboard design. The purpose of the billboard was two-fold: to boost admissions to the engineering program and to capture humidity from the air to produce drinking water.
In Dianna Cohen's TEDx Talk in Thessaloniki in 2014, Cohen talks about plastic pollution in the oceans and how we can limit the use of plastics in our day-to-day lives.
Never take water for granted, Jim said. Always cherish it. Always beware of it.
Jeannette Walls
Every beach in the Galápagos is covered with sea lions: napping, sun tanning, playing in the surf. The youngsters are incredibly friendly, splashing around with tourists, blowing bubbles with scuba divers, posing for pictures. This has given many tourists a false idea of how they should behave with these animals. Most tourists now overstep their bounds, trying to one-up their friends with the ultimate selfie and with the biggest sea lion.
In my search for a simpler and more coherent life, I asked a series of questions about what I was putting in my body, what I was eating, what medicines I used, and even what kind of makeup I put on. I came to understand the power of my choices when consuming a product, and my freedom to buy only from companies with the same values as myself.
By Naty Gaiarim
The inspiration for this site came to me in September 2017 when I had an amazing opportunity fall into my lap: Waterlution’s Water Innovation Lab (WIL) in Porto, Portugal. This program brought together young professionals from all over the world to form connections, share their knowledge, build leadership skills, and learn about other disciplines in the water industry. WIL Porto was part of Porto Water Innovation Week 2017, which also included the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) Water Conference.
