Edward Burtynsky has long been one of TreeHugger’s favorite artists. Known for his large-scale photographs documenting the many ways humans have left our mark on the natural landscape in unnatural ways, such as oil consumption, agriculture and mining, the Toronto-based photographer’s latest collection is called Water and shows the role water plays in ecosystems, energy, cultural practices and disasters.

“While trying to accommodate the growing needs of an expanding, and very thirsty civilization, we are reshaping the Earth in colossal ways. In this new and powerful role over the planet, we are also capable of engineering our own demise. We have to learn to think more long-term about the consequences of what we are doing, while we are doing it. My hope is that these pictures will stimulate a process of thinking about something essential to our survival; something we often take for granted—until it’s gone.” Read more

At the international level, water conflicts among countries dominate the headlines. But within countries it is the competition for water between cities and farms that preoccupies political leaders. Neither economics nor politics favors farmers. They almost always lose out to cities.

Indeed, in many countries farmers now face not only a shrinking water supply but also a shrinking share of that shrinking supply. In large areas of the United States, such as the southern Great Plains and the Southwest, virtually all water is now spoken for. The growing water needs of major cities and thousands of small towns often can be satisfied only by taking water from agriculture. As the value of water rises, more farmers are selling their irrigation rights to cities, letting their land dry up. Read more

When you’re wading in a cool mountain stream, and you can see your to­es in the sand, you assume the water’s safe to drink. But even water that looks perfectly clear may harbor a variety of bacteria, parasites and protozoa that can make you very ill. You can’t tell from smelling or taking a small taste whether water is safe to drink. Even water from spigots in campgrounds may not be. When you’re camping, unless there’s a sign that specifically states that water is safe to drink, you should take precaution and treat it.

Portable water filters are probably the easiest and safest way to treat water for drinking. There are many choices in water filters. The least expensive may cost less than $20, while more expensive filters can cost several hundred. For the average user, it’s possible to find a perfectly functional water filter for less than $100. Read more

There’s a whole lot of water on Earth! Something like 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons (326 million trillion gallons) of the stuff (roughly 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 liters) can be found on our planet. This water is in a constant cycle — it evaporates from the ocean, travels through the air, rains down on the land and then flows back to the ocean.

The oceans are huge. About 70 percent of the planet is covered in ocean, and the average depth of the ocean is several thousand feet (about 1,000 meters). Ninety-eight percent of the water on the planet is in the oceans, and therefore is unusable for drinking because of the salt. About 2 percent of the planet’s water is fresh, but 1.6 percent of the planet’s water is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Another 0.36 percent is found underground in aquifers and wells.

Only about 0.036 percent of the planet’s total water supply is found in lakes and rivers. That’s still thousands of trillions of gallons, but it’s a very small amount compared to all the water available. Read more