Fair Water?

Informing and empowering audiences around water security

Water underpins every aspect of life. It connects every living being on Earth, supporting health, growth, well-being and access to food and energy. Yet the ‘water crisis’ is often thought of in disconnected ways. For some it evokes water infrastructure; for others, access to water, river pollution, or the ever-increasing frequency and impacts of extreme events, such as droughts and floods. Attempts to engage with the public around the water crisis – through the media, documentaries, or public engagement activities for example – rarely provide a lens wide enough to show how these issues are connected, or detailed enough to convey how they translate into people’s daily lives and what we – as individuals, communities, or countries – can do to address them. If research often fails to provide engaging entry points for the public, the media often leaves people feeling overwhelmed and disempowered. We know that pessimism and hopelessness about the future is growing among young people, and that scepticism and distrust towards scientific experts is on the rise.

Our Fair Water? exhibition aims to address these gaps, with a constructive path forward. It reveals what water (in)security means for different people, households and communities, and some of the global barriers to equity. It explores how researchers, community and policy makers are working together to shape a fairer water future through practical, achievable and scalable solutions in Africa and Asia.

Professor Katrina Charles and Alice Chautard > Read full article here