WATER IS LIFE

WORLD WATER DAY - 2010

The Maya believed natural wells, such as the Xkeken cenote in Mexico's Yucatan, led to the underworld

A cross hewn for Epiphany in the ice of Maine's Kennebec River by parishioners of St. Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Church commemorates the baptism of Christ. The water from the carving will bless the church

India's holiest river, the Ganges, is scribbled with light from floating oil lamps during the Ganga Dussehra festival in Haridwar. Hindus near death often bathe in the river; some are later cremated beside it and have their ashes scattered on its waters

Floating on dreams and whispers, girls from a West Bank village cool off in the salt-laden waters of the Dead Sea. With its main tributary, the Jordan, at less than a tenth of its former volume, the inland sea has dropped 70 feet since 1978

After six years of drought, measuring sticks are useless at the Ziglab Dam in Jordan, built to catch water flowing west into the Jordan River for irrigation. Its reservoir has shrunk to a fifth of capacity and hasn't filled since 2003, forcing Jordan to ration water

A man swims in a pool inside a condominium in Singapore March 21, 2010

A boy swims in the murky waters of Manila Bay March 21, 2010

Gabra women in northern Kenya spend up to five hours a day carrying heavy jerry cans filled with murky water. A lingering drought has pushed this already arid region to a water crisis

Homes are surrounded by flood waters from the swollen Red River, Sunday, March 21, 2010, south of Fargo, North Dakota. The river crested at Fargo today at about 37 feet, nearly four feet short of last year's record crest of nearly 41 feet

Flood water drains from a ditch along Interstate 29 March 21, 2010 south of Fargo, North Dakota

Tracking the return of a native species to Tennessee's Abrams Creek, snorkeling scientists search under flat rocks for the smoky madtom - a two-inch catfish

Upsala Glacier seen from the International Space Station in February of 2010. Upsala is a large valley glacier in Argentina's Los Glaciares National Park

Villagers and donkeys near Marsabit, Kenya, lean into a trough at the top of a "singing well" - so called because the people who form bucket brigades to bring the water up from deep underground sing as they work. Each visitor is allowed to fill only one large jerry can a day - and the women usually have to wait until after the animals have drunk.

This photo released on February 26, 2010 from the Australian Antarctic Division shows the the Mertz Glacier Tongue, a 160-kilometer spit of floating ice protruding into the Southern Ocean from East Antarctica, in 2007. Researchers said on February 25, 2010 that the iceberg the size of Luxembourg - or some 2,550 square kilometres (985 square miles) in size - knocked loose from the Antarctic continent earlier this month and could disrupt the ocean currents driving weather patterns around the globe

Dry conditions produce cracked earth at a reservoir in Shilin county, Yunnan province, China, on Thursday, March 4, 2010. Yunnan is experiencing its worst drought in more than 60 years

Southern California draws much of its water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which was dyked and divided into farms more than a century ago. Many of the aging levees are at risk of failure

Once the city's main water source, the Los Angeles River is now a concrete channel fed by storm drains. City residents rely on water piped in from hundreds of miles away

A Chinese softball player hits a ball during a sandstorm in Beijing on March 20, 2010. People woke up to find the Chinese capital blanketed in yellow dust, as a sandstorm caused by a severe drought in the north and in Mongolia swept into the city

A man drinks from a pipe March 18, 2010 in the streets of quake-struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

A dead fish is seen floating in a polluted river on the outskirts of Yingtan, Jiangxi province China onMarch 20, 2010.

Norwood Airport in Norwood, Massachusetts showed the impact of recent flooding on March 16, 2010 as crews undertook cleanup operations across the state

A man delivers water from a water tank in shanty town Pamplona at Villa Maria Del Triunfo, near Peru's capital Lima, March 20, 2010. Working toilets and clean drinking water are unattainable luxuries for a third of the Peru's city dwellersand two-thirds of its rural population, one of the world's highest levels for a middle-income country that boasts a fast-growing economy, huge investor interest and ample Andean water resources

A picture taken on February 10, 2010 shows the Churchill dam as it is 17 percent full in the Kareedouw region, West of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The green pitch at Port Elizabeth's World Cup stadium has become an island in a sea of brown, exempt from restrictions imposed due to a drought that has scorched the land outside

Mahendra Kumar surfaces to catch his breath as he dives into a polluted section of the River Yamuna to scavenge for ornaments and coins left by Hindu rituals at the river bank, in New Delhi, India, Monday, March 22, 2010. Officials say factories are ignoring regulations and dumping untreated sewage and industrial pollution, turning the river toxic that gives the capital much of its drinking water

A villager bathes under a hose pipe used for the irrigation of rice fields, as his son, left, looks on, on the outskirts of Amritsar, India, Monday, March 22, 2010.

A floating restaurant is stranded in a branch of the Yangtze River in Chongqing Municipality, March 21, 2010. A severe drought across a large swath of southwest China is now affecting more than 50 million people, and forecasters see no signs of it abating in the short term.

Deer, or milu, walk in water at the Yangtze River Swan Islet Pere David's Deer Nature Reserve on April 22, 2008in Shishou of Hubei Province, China. The nature reserve, a wetland covering an area of about 69 square kilometers, contains over 1,000 deer, the largest wild population of the animal in the world

4,000 baby bottles containing polluted water stand on the Bundesplatz in Bern, Switzerland, March 22. 2010. The action was organized by the Swiss association for International Cooperation Helvetas to highlight the UN's World Water Day

A fisherman paddles his canoe through dead fish along Manaquiri River, a tributary of the Amazon, near the city of Manaquiri, November 28, 2009. The world's biggest rainforest is suffering from seasonal drought, killing tons of fish

A section of Lake Nasser in Egypt, a massive reservoir behind the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River, seen from the International Space Station in January of 2010. The lake is capable of storing some 157 cubic kilometers (37.5 cubic miles)of fresh water

Chinese villagers draw water from a 158-year-old well in Caojiazhuang village, on the outskirts of Guiyang, southwestern China's Guizhou province on March 20, 2010. Millions of people face drinking water shortages in southwestern China because of a once-a-century drought that has dried up rivers and threatens vast farmlands in Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan provinces, the Guangxi region, and the mega-city of Chongqing.

Severed from the edge of Antarctica, this iceberg might float for years as it melts and releases its store of fresh water into the sea. The water molecules will eventually evaporate, condense, and recycle back to Earth as precipitation

An Indian village boy runs through a parched field on World Water Day in Berhampur, Orissa state, India, Monday, March 22, 2010

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