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)

“24.27 N, 81.44 W. These coordinates mark the spot of the final resting place of an old brave soldier, the USS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. In 2009 it underwent a complete change when the creaky steel monster became a mystical bearer of secrets. In May of that year, the Vandenberg was lowered down into the darkness of the ocean off the coast of Florida to become an artificial reef, where it would dwell in rigor mortis at a depth of 130 feet. This lively, animate, secretive nothingness, this menacing, wild emptiness would haunt and seduce the renowned Austrian photographer and passionate diver Andreas Franke...”. – The Sinking World (Photo by Andreas Franke)

A picture made available 27 November 2015 shows a handler putting his head between the gaping fangs of a crocodile during a show at the Samutprakarn Crocodile Farm and Zoo, Samutprakarn province, outside Bangkok, Thailand, 26 November 2015. The farm and zoo claims to be the world's largest crocodile farm with more than 80,000 freshwater and marine crocodiles, and offers shows such as crocodile wrestling to attract tourists. (Photo by Diego Azubel/EPA)

A man dressed as Father Frost, Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, sits by the fire with a reindeer Yakut, marking winter solstice at the Royev Ruchey Park of Flora and Fauna in the Siberian Taiga wood in the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, December 21, 2016. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Replica of an old traditional Icelandic house from the 1800 with eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, 2013. (Photo by Ingólfur Bjargmundsson/Getty Images)

This picture taken on July 9, 2013 shows heavy flood waters sweeping through Beichuan in southwest China´s Sichuan province. Rainstorms sweeping across parts of China have affected millions, causing landslides and disabling transportation in provinces such as Sichuan and Yunnan, state media reported. (Photo by AFP Photo)

Indian Muslim children hold anti-US placards as they participate in a protest meeting against the film “Innocence of Muslims” in Kolkata on October 5, 2012. A low-budget, US-produced “Innocence of Muslims” movie has incited a wave of bloody anti-US violence in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen and in several other countries across the Muslim world. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/AFP Photo)

Members of the Royal Navy respond to a simulated fire in a Vanguard-class submarine control room training facility at Clyde naval base in Faslane, Scotland on January 21, 2016. (Photo by Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA Wire)