A model, Mousumi Das wearing a traditional Indian saree and holding a Clay face of the Durga idol poses for an Agomoni Concept photoshoot at the Artist hub Kumortuli in Kolkata on August 23, 2025. (Photo by ZUMAPRESS.com/The Mega Agency)

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)

Athlets run during the women's 3000 meter steeplechase at the International Athletics Meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, 14 June 2016. (Photo by Alexandra Wey/EPA)

BASE jumper Luke Denniss of Australia gestures as he dives in the air from the Kuala Lumpur Tower during the KL Tower International Jump in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Saturday, September 27, 2014. BASE stands for the places such jumpers usually jump from: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges) and earth (cliffs). (Photo by Lai Seng Sin/AP Photo)

The pedestrian zone on the banks of the “Parco della Pace” at Lake Maggiore is flooded due to flooding, on Thursday, October 24, 2019 in Locarno, Switzerland. (Photo by Samuel Golay/Ti-Press/Keystoen)

A market trader in Gaibandha in Bangladesh on September 25, 2019, surrounded by bottle gourd vegetables, which sell for around 3p ($ 0.04) each. (Photo by Solent News)

A dancer waits to perform during festivities marking the start of the annual harvest festival of “Onam” in Kochi, India, August 19, 2015. The ten-day-long Hindu festival is celebrated annually in India's southern coastal state of Kerala to commemorate the return of King Mahabali to his beloved subjects. (Photo by Sivaram V/Reuters)

Women perform a pole dancing routine during the national day celebration of “Urban Pole” dance along a street in Monterrey, Mexico, on June 9, 2013. (Photo by Daniel Becerril/Reuters)