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)

A photographer with a passion for wild animals was able to get up close and personal with one of nature’s deadliest creatures. Alex Suh has traveled to Mexico’s Banco Chinchorro reef twice in the past three years to get into the waters and capture the crocodiles in their natural habitat after an invitation from Yucatan Dive Trek. (Photo by Alex Suh/Caters News Agency)

Topless protesters from the organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) stand with “banderillas” filled with red powder as about 100 people rally in front of the town hall square in Pamplona, Navarra, northern Spain, demonstrating against the treatment of fighting bulls in the Fiesta de San Fermin, 05 July 2017. The renowned eight-day festival made famous by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises” has running-with-the-bulls and a bullfight each day for the fair, which begins at noon on 06 July 2017. (Photo by Jim Hollander/EPA)

Emergency workers save a shepherd dog from a beach during a forest fire on August 2, 2021 in Mugla, a Marmaris' district, as Turkey struggles against its deadliest wildfires in decades. A roaring blaze raced toward a Turkish thermal power plant and farmers herded panicked cattle toward the sea as wildfires that have killed eight people raged on for a seventh day. The nation of 84 million has been transfixed in horror as the most destructive wildfires in generations erase pristine forests and rich farmland across swaths of Turkey's Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

In this handout photo released by Kooperativ Telegram Channel, flames and smoke rise from the scene after a warplane crashed into a residential area in Yeysk, Russia, Monday, October 17, 2022. The Russian military says one of its warplanes has crashed near an apartment building in Yeysk, a port city on the Sea of Azov, after experiencing engine failure on takeoff. The crash ignited a huge fire, killing at least four people, leaving six missing and injuring 21 others, eight of whom were in grave condition. One of the pilots, right, descends on a parachute. (Photo by Kooperativ Telegram Channel via AP Photo)

Pedestrians look at the wreckage of a vehicle lodged in a storm drain on a street in Abidjan on June 19, 2018, in which a man was reportedly found dead after floodwaters receded following an overnight downpour in the city. Fifteen people have died in Abidjan, Ivory Coast' s economic capital, during flooding caused by torrential rain overnight, Interior Minister Sidiki Diakite said. Rain poured down overnight on June 19, causing flash floods up to 2.5 metres (more than eight feet) deep, he said. (Photo by Sia Kambou/AFP Photo)

Shemika Charles limbos under her car at Niagara Falls State Park on May 28, 2015 in Buffalo, New York. A world record holding limbo queen thinks she has become the first person to shimmy under a car. Shemika Charles amazed herself and onlookers when she bent over backwards to get underneath the SUV earlier this week. The supple 22-year-old entered the record books in 2010 when she limboed down to an incredible eight and a half inches – the height of a beer bottle. She trains for up to four hours a day to keep her body in peak condition and now travels around America performing with her family. However, regular performances put an incredible strain on her body and she sees a chiropractor once a week to have her hips realigned. Her mother was also a successful limbo dancer in her home country of Trinidad and Tobago but had to give up due to injury. (Photo by Ruaridh Connellan/Barcroft USA)