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)

Student protestors, including one girl with a camera, struggle with soldiers from the Chinese Army, the PLA. Tiananmen Square, 1989. (Photo by Jeff Widener/Associated Press)

Sikh Nihang's Singh (Sikh warriors) walk along the empty Heritage Street after strict lockdown norms for weekends and public holidays were imposed as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Amritsar on June 13, 2020. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)

A Nepalese girl in traditional attire takes part in Kumari Puja, a mass worship ceremony for preteen girls, in Kathmandu, Nepal on September 27, 2023. In Nepal, Kumari Puja is the tradition of selecting a Kumari, usually a preadolescent girl, to worship symbolically as a goddess. More than hundred girls under the age of nine from across the country gathered for the mass worship. Performing Kumari Puja for three continuous years is believed to protect the girls from diseases throughout their entire life. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA/EFE)

A Pakistani policeman wades across floodwaters in Lahore on August 19, 2024. Flash floods triggered by the latest spell of monsoon rains are wreaking havoc across parts of Pakistan, claiming the lives of 14 people in the previous 24 hours, an official at the provincial disaster management authority said on August 19. (Photo by Tahir Jamil Khan/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

A relative of journalist Romelo Vilsaint grieves after learning that he was fatally shot outside a police station, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, October 30, 2022. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

Astronauts Harrison Schmitt (left) and Eugene Andrew Cernan practice taking geological samples at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for NASA's scheduled Apollo 17 lunar landing mission, on August 28, 1972. Schmitt is the Lunar Module Pilot and Cernan is the mission's Commander. They are training for their period of EVA (extravehicular activity) on the Moon. (Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

Opposition supporters carry stones and chant slogans demanding lower taxes and a reduced cost of living in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 20, 2023. Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga called on his supporters to participate in countrywide protests on March 20, 2023 to demand that President William Ruto lowers the cost of living while questioning last year's presidential elections results. Kenyans face economic hardship following the government's recent tax measures and increased food and fuel prices. (Photo by Luis Tato/AFP Photo)