In Pictures

Gallery|Environment

Seen from the sky: Polluted waters around the world

As the UN marks World Water Day, aerial pictures reveal the impact of pollution on waterways around the world.

An aerial view shows water contaminated with raw sewage flowing via open channels into the ocean at Hann Bay on the eastern edge of Dakar's peninsula, Senegal, whose sandy shorefront is discoloured by stagnant algae. Inadequate sewer infrastructure in the adjacent neighbourhoods of Hann-Bel-air and Mbao means large amounts of untreated solid and liquid waste is released into the bay. "We live in sickness here, because our families are in direct contact with this water and this waste," said fisherman and local resident Pape Malick Ba. Last September, the water and sanitation ministry launched a long-promised project to clean up Hann Bay at a cost of 93 billion CFA francs ($168m). As residents wait for it to yield results, they struggle to keep their beaches clean through citizen initiatives. [Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
Published On 22 Mar 2021

About four billion people experience severe water shortages for at least one month a year, and around 1.6 billion people – almost a quarter of the world’s population – have problems accessing a clean, safe water supply, according to the United Nations.

While the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals call for water and sanitation for all by 2030, the world body says water scarcity is increasing and more than half the world’s population will be living in water-stressed regions by 2050.

In the run-up to the UN’s World Water Day on Monday, photographers from the Reuters news agency used drones to capture dramatic pictures of polluted waterways around the world.

In one image, a discarded sofa lies beached in the Tiete river, in Brazil’s biggest city Sao Paulo, into which hundreds of tonnes of untreated sewage and waste are tipped each day.

Others show domestic waste clogging the Citarum river in Bandung, Indonesia and sewage flowing into the Euphrates in Najaf, Iraq.

Julia Brown, a geographer specialising in environment and development at the University of Portsmouth, said many countries with water-intensive agriculture and industry lacked adequate safe drinking water.

“When we buy products and buy food and clothing we don’t always appreciate that we’re actually importing somebody else’s water and often those countries where we’re importing water from, like in avocados or our denim jeans, they’re actually very water-scarce countries,” she told Reuters.

Brown added that, while extending access to water was important, maintaining that access in some of the poorest parts of the world was often overlooked.

“NGOs like to have their photographs taken with a shiny new hand pump … then they walk away and it’s handed over to communities to raise the funds to maintain these systems, to make sure that they’re repaired. And if they’re not?” she said.

“The research indicates at any one time one-third of hand pumps across Sub-Saharan Africa are broken.”

Workers collect plastic trash that litters the polluted Potpecko Lake near a dam's hydroelectric plant near the town of Priboj, Serbia. The river Lim, which fills the lake, is swollen by melting snows, and according to activists it has carried in more than 20,000 cubic metres (706,293 cubic feet) of plastics from unregulated dumps along its banks in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia. As the garbage also threatened the functioning of a hydroelectric plant, authorities in Belgrade ordered a cleanup. The operators collect up to 100 cubic metres (3,531 cubic feet) of plastic and other trash daily and take it to a landfill about 80 kilometres (50 miles) away. [Marko Djurica/Reuters]
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In 1969 the Cuyahoga River in Akron, Ohio caught fire due to pollution, causing the US Congress to pass the clean water act and the setting up of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. [Megan Jelinger/Reuters]
A drain pipe feeding the Euphrates River near Najaf, Iraq discharges sewage into the water. [Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters]
People fish from a wooden bridge at the Pisang Batu river, which flows through a densely populated area and is polluted by domestic waste in Bekasi, on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia. The river made national headlines in 2019 after plastic garbage and organic waste from nearby households completely covered its surface, stretching 1.5 kilometres (0.9 miles). The river now contains less waste after several cleanup operations, but the water is black, emitting a strong odour. [Willy Kurniawan/Reuters]
People walk along the bank of the River Tame near Denton, Britain. A University of Manchester report in 2018 found that the river had "the worst" level of micro-plastic pollution ever recorded anywhere in the world at that time. [Phil Noble/Reuters]
Disposed garbage on the shore of Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One of the legacy promises of the 2016 Olympic Games the city was the cleanup of Guanabara Bay. Nearly five years on, the situation has worsened, according to data from state environmental institute Inea. The environmental degradation of the water bodies in metropolitan Rio is putting local ecosystems and public health at risk. [Pilar Olivares/Reuters]
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Domestic waste floats in the Citarum river in Bandung, Indonesia. The government has pledged to clean the river, considered to be among the world's most polluted, and to make the water there drinkable by 2025. But household and industrial waste have continued to flow in its waters. [Willy Kurniawan/Reuters]
Rotten trees in a toxic lake near Yatagan in Mugla province, southwest Turkey. The toxic lake, known as an ash dam, is created by a mix of wastewater and polluted ash which are both produced at the nearby Yatagan power station. The lake contains heavy metals such as selenium, cadmium, boron, nickel, copper and zinc that are leaking into the earth and groundwater of the Yatagan Plain, an agricultural area that feeds both Yatagan and Mugla towns. It is one of 15 ash dams in Turkey, which environmental organisations say need to be stopped from causing further damage to nature. [Umit Bektas/Reuters]
Hoverboats on the ice of Lake Baikal near the village of Bolshoye Goloustnoye in Irkutsk region, Russia. Lake Baikal remains one of the world's cleanest freshwater reservoirs. But pollution and the growth of weeds are harming microorganisms, sponges and some molluscs that filter its waters. The Baikal pulp and paper mill and its sewage treatment facilities were closed seven years ago, but pollution has spread significantly since then, according to local media. That, some experts say, is because pollution left behind at the industrial site is draining into the lake. [Maxim Shemetov/Reuters]
A discarded sofa on the Tiete river near the Ecological Tiete Park in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Rio Tiete, which flows like a vast open sewer though Brazil's largest city Sao Paulo, is among the most polluted in the country. More than 100km (60 miles) of the river is considered dead or too polluted for almost all marine life. The stinking river, which receives hundreds of tonnes of untreated sewage and waste every day, is a black mark on Brazil's wealthiest city. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
Drainage system waterways around the densely-populated Mexico City, like the Interceptor Poniente in Cuautitlan, are heavily polluted with sewage and trash from nearby communities. Access to reliable water services is limited in low-income areas. Mexico has one of the lowest shares of its population connected to public wastewater treatment plants in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the agency. [Carlos Jasso/Reuters]