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)

Kimono-clad women enjoy the view from Tokyo Sky Tree’s 350-meter-high observation deck in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, on the Coming of Age Day, January 9, 2017. Sumida Ward invited about 430 local 20-year-old to the deck to celebrate them. Many city governments invite local 20-years-old to there’s symbolic places and celebrate for their Coming of Age Day. (Photo by The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images)

An Orthodox priest conducts a blessing in front of the Soyuz TMA-20M for the next International Space Station (ISS) crew, comprised of Jeff Williams of the U.S. and Oleg Skriprochka and Alexey Ovchinin of Russia, at the launchpad at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, March 17, 2016, ahead of its launch scheduled on March 19. (Photo by Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

Model Irina Shayk shields herself from rain as she leaves the grand opening of Falconeri in SoHo of New York on October 16, 2019. (Photo by Backgrid USA)

Wout van Aert of Team Visma Lease a Bike of Belgium during the UCI Worldcup Dendermonde 2025 at the Dendermonde on January 5, 2025 in Dendermonde Belgium (Photo by Pim Waslander/Soccrates/Getty Images)

Opossums on their mothers back at a game reserve in Central Minnesota, USA, on September 2, 2013. (Photo by Caters News Agency)

In this October 15, 2014 file photo, Katsu Nakamura, sky division manager for Yamaha USA, moves the RMax unmanned helicopter into position before a demonstration of its aerial application capabilities at the University of California, Davis' Oakville Station test vineyard in Oakville, Calif. Researchers at UC Davis have been studying the effectiveness of the drone's ability for spraying pest control and nutritional materials on the test vineyard in California's Napa Valley. (Photo by Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo)

A Uyghur boy sits atop a horse as he has his picture taken outside the Id Kah Mosque before the Eid holiday on July 28, 2014 in old Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, China. Nearly 100 people have been killed in unrest in the restive Xinjiang Province in the last week in what authorities say is terrorism but advocacy groups claim is a result of a government crackdown to silence opposition to its policies. China's Muslim Uyghur ethnic group faces cultural and religious restrictions by the Chinese government. Beijing says it is investing heavily in the Xinjiang region but Uyghurs are increasingly dissatisfied with the influx of Han Chinese and uneven economic development. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)