Photographer Robynne Limoges shares a series of evocative abstract images that reflect her feelings on the critical issues of increasing water scarcity and expanding desert — imagining ‘the last bowl of water I will have at my disposal’.
800 words: estimated reading time 3 minutes + 1 minute gallery
The scientists, researchers and scholars who are part of ClimateCultures will be able to provide more up-to-date statistics than I am able to on the subject of the paucity of water around the world and the state of the world’s deserts.
But I will introduce my photographic series, called Rock Pools in the Desert, by sharing a few (most likely already out-of-date) statistics from Lifewater, for World Water Day 2018, elucidating a few of their 10 Facts About the Water Crisis:
- 844 million people live without access to clean water. This corresponds to approximately one in ten people on Earth, or approximately twice the population of the United States.
- More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war.
- One in three people — 2.4 billion — lack access to a toilet.
- Water-borne diseases kill more children under the age of five than malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS combined.
- In developing countries, as much as 80% of illnesses are directly linked to poor water and sanitary conditions.
- Women and girls spend up to six hours every day walking to get water for their families, water that can often make them sick (in Africa and Asia, the average walk to collect water is 3.7 miles, every day).
- 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases.
- Time spent gathering water around the world translates to $24 billion in lost economic benefits, furthering the cycle of poverty.
- The ever-increasing demand for water makes it a frontline issue for survival.
There are many more statistics available. The deterioration of our water supplies and the increasing deserts that will follow are also addressed by the University of Maryland. In their April 2018 report, they show that the Sahara Desert has become 10 per cent larger (10 per cent!) in the past century.
I sincerely hope that my deep concerns for the state of the physical world — and for the lack of productive leadership shown around the world to save our planet, its people, its wildlife and marine life — are shared by increasing numbers of organisations and individuals who possess the ability and funding to save our future. Thus far, I have only proof of the opposite.
And so, as I did in Black Haiku: Poems for Dark Times, in this submission Rock Pools in the Desert, I am interpreting my own feelings through a series of metaphorical images. The series came about in a somewhat interesting way, to me at least. I found myself standing in front of a scratched, hammered stainless steel sink. To the right of me was a window onto the sea. As I looked at the dried droplets while I was washing my hands, I thought, ‘yes, this is it. This is the last bowl of water I will have at my disposal, the last source of water’. I stared at it so hard that I began to focus on the change in light from the out-of-doors and how it affected the surface, the water and the scratches. I returned to that sink many times, at different times of day and photographed it at different angles over time. I actually became a bit obsessed by its changing nature.
I offer you just six of the 70-plus images I took of one single object that became for me the entire subject of water.
Rock Pools in the Desert
NB: Click on the image to enter slideshow and view full size.
(All images are © Robynne Limoges 2018 and are not to be reproduced or used without her written permission. Please contact her via her website at www.RobynneLimoges.com )
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Robynne’s previous post for ClimateCultures was Black Haiku: Poems for Dark Times.
Lifewater is a Christian clean water organisation that, for more than 40 years, has been bringing clean water, improved health, and hope to vulnerable women and children living in extreme poverty. Their Water Crisis factsheet – which includes 10 Facts About the Water Crisis and the sources of the statistics, can be downloaded here.
World Water Day – 22nd March every year – is about focusing attention on the importance of water. The theme for World Water Day 2018 was ‘Nature for Water’ – exploring nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century.
The University of Maryland research on the expansion of the Sahara desert was reported in Science Daily (29/3/18): “The researchers concluded that … natural climate cycles accounted for about two-thirds of the total observed expansion of the Sahara. The remaining one-third can be attributed to climate change, but the authors note that longer climate records that extend across several climate cycles are needed to reach more definitive conclusions.”
There is a useful and comprehensive guide, the Global Water Crisis by the Numbers, from Water Tech Advice.
Robynne Limoges
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