In many families, the burden of collecting water falls to women and girls.

What could you do with an extra five hours in your day?

Get some more sleep? Maybe hit the gym? Read that book you’ve been meaning to start?

For women all over the world, an extra five hours a day would be a rare gift.

As we mark World Water Day, it’s worth realizing that for a family of four living without clean water available close to home, five hours is the amount of time required for collecting water – a burden most often borne by women and girls, who are usually tasked with the difficult and sometimes dangerous daily chore.

Some 844 million people don’t have access to clean water close to home – that is, water from a clean source within a 30-minute round trip. Even at this distance, a family trying to gather the WHO-recommended minimum 50 liters (13.2 gallons) per person would spend five hours a day lugging 20-liter jerrycans to and from water points. That adds up to 76 days each year. Read more

Mustafah Abdulaziz travels the world documenting water consumption.

From a solitary woman drawing water from an open pit in Somalia to dozens of New York City residents evading the summer heat in a massive municipal swimming pool, Mustafah Abdulaziz’s photography captures how people interact with water around the world.

Abdulaziz was born in New York City and resides in Berlin, Germany, but his project “Water” has compelled him to travel to several countries, including India, Iceland, and Sierra Leone, to document how human beings use, abuse, and depend upon on water. Read more

In an effort to improve water management, the University of California will install sensor networks across various protected habitats to predict how freshwater moves, biology professor Todd Dawson explains.

Researchers at Merced Vernal Pools and Grassland Reserve, one of many research sites owned by the University of California

CALIFORNIA IS ABOUT to learn a whole lot more about how water moves through its many diverse landscapes.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded a $2.2 million grant to the University of California to use remote sensors and drones to monitor hydrology across various landscapes. The subject areas will be the U.C.’s Natural Reserve System, a network of protected lands covering more than 750,000 acres and representing many habitat types in the state.

Called the California Heartbeat Initiative-Freshwater, the project will equip reserves with wireless sensor nodes to track weather, soil moisture, transpiration and a host of other criteria. Each node, about the size of a thermos, is outfitted with a battery and solar panel. They communicate wirelessly with each other and a central computer. Drones will fly programmed routes with special cameras attached to monitor how vegetation changes with the climate. Read more

There are more than 10 water stewardship frameworks meant to help companies mitigate risk and plan sustainably in a water-constrained world, but there is much more companies can be doing, write industry leaders Paul Reig and Will Sarni.

IN A WATER-STRESSED world, there’s a powerful business case for companies to manage this essential resource sustainably, engage in water stewardshipand drive collective action. As a shared resource, water provides diminished benefits to all if each user acts only in their own self-interest. Addressing today’s wicked water problems – including droughts, dwindling groundwater and failing infrastructure – will require coordinated, collective responses. Read more

A new find of liquid water fuels hopes that life may yet exist on the red planet.

It’s tempting to say that the announcement of liquid water on the surface of Mars heralds a new era in Martian exploration.
You might think that the first human explorers on Mars will park next to a salty stream and use it to manufacture fresh drinking water. Maybe they could even find life in damp Martian nooks and crannies, areas where the dusty red planet can still fuel microbes.
Reality is much more subtle. Finding evidence for flowing water is not the same as finding life. Right now, scientists don’t know where this water is coming from, or if the chemistry in these Martian seeps is even life-friendly. And unfortunately, chances are it will be a long time before we can get there to find out.

“It’s hard to get a spacecraft clean enough to send a lander or rover there right now,” says Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary geologist at Caltech, referring to concerns about hitchhiking Earth microbes contaminating the Martian surface. Read more