Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)

Indian labourers carry clay bricks to a brick kiln in Farakka, in the Indian state of West Bengal, on April 3, 2019. (Photo by Xavier Galiana/AFP Photo)

A long skater speeds away on the rain-wet ice on lake Orlangen, South of Stockholm on December 15, 2013. Meteorologists forecast temperatures around 5 degrees for southern Sweden. (Photo by Tobias Rostlund/AFP Photo)

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A fado singer smokes a cigarrette outside a fado house at the Alfama neighborhood in Lisbon on May 8, 2019. From fado sounds to Cape Verde mornas or bossa nova: the Lisbon nights, where musicians from all over the world meet, have largely inspired Madonna's new album, who has been in the Portuguese capital since 2017. (Photo by Patrícia de Melo Moreira/AFP Photo)

Dublin Horse Show mascot “Conor the Capall” among the crowds on the opening day of the 147th Dublin Horse Show at the RDS on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, the first to be held since 2019. The event which was first held in 1864 takes place over the next five days and includes national and international show jumping competitions. (Photo by Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)

Cybermen patrol the National Museum of Scotland before the opening of the Doctor Who Worlds of Wonder exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland on Wednesday, December 7, 2022. (Photo by Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian)

An Egyptian passenger sits on the locomotive of a train as it leaves Cairo train station in Egypt, Wednesday, October 14, 2015. (Photo by Amr Nabil/AP Photo)

Students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews, UK in Fife on Monday, October 16, 2023. (Photo by Lesley Martin/PA Images/Profimedia)