American Scientist

Water is both ordinary and anomalous. It is the only substance on our planet naturally found in all three states: solid, liquid, and gas. Its molecules stick together like minuscule magnets, pulling rainwater into round drops. Water is remarkable in its ability to absorb and hold heat, a property that influences nearly every aspect of Earth’s weather and climate. Liquid water is a “universal solvent” that can dissolve many other substances, including several discussed in this issue: salt, lead, fluoride, uranium, and hexavalent chromium.

Water is paradoxical, too, in that it is both ubiquitous and rare. Every breath you take is full of water vapor. Living organisms are about 65 percent water. Viewed from space, our blue planet’s most noticeable feature is the water that covers more than 70 percent of its surface. Yet 99 percent of the water on Earth is unusable for drinking. Most of the liquid fresh water is stored in the ground, not flowing on the surface in lakes and rivers.

And water has a way of bringing out the paradoxes of the human experience: our courage and compassion, and our greed and hubris. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the infernal rivers are fed by the tears of human suffering and become more contaminated as they pass through each circle of hell. In her essay poem “Paradox, Sunrise, and a Thirsty Place” (Arts Lab), artist Nina Elder uses water to explore these human contradictions, processing her grief over the loss and change sure to come, balanced with her hope for the future. In their feature “Thirsty City on a Lake,” Manuel Perló Cohen and Loreta Castro-Reguera Mancera problem-solve how Mexico City’s history and hydrology have resulted in a megalopolis that is running out of water even though it sits in the middle of a lake. And in another water paradox, Meraz Mostafa, Naznin Nasir, M. Feisal Rahman, and Saleemul Huq describe a confluence of water management issues in Bangladesh that has resulted in the world’s largest delta struggling with a freshwater crisis (“A Delta in Peril”).

Water crosses political borders, and weaves together economic sectors that operate independently. Water does not respect divisions of “us” and “them”; there is always someone downstream, a reality made apparent by Sherri A. Mason’s eyebrow-raising research on microplastics (Perspective, “Plastics, Plastics Everywhere”). Water is fundamental, then, to conflict and cooperation. For instance, Marcus D. King explores the troubling ways water has been weaponized in conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa in “Dying for a Drink.”

Despite their tangled nature, the challenges water presents can be met and overcome. For example, Jeff Opperman and his coauthors describe renewable energy strategies to avoid conflicts over damming Earth’s remaining free-flowing rivers (“Sustaining the Last Rivers”). Pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, whose research on the children in Flint, Michigan, made the lead contamination there undeniable, discusses how she is working to promote environmental justice and resilience.

Reading this issue makes it powerfully clear that addressing the world’s water needs in a fair and effective way will require regional, national, and international organizations to work with the local communities and local experts who are most at risk. There is enough water for everyone, if we decide collectively to manage water sustainably. Water reflects who we are; it shows us our blind spots and our hidden potentials. Now that you see an honest reflection, what will you change? —Katie L. Burke, special issue editor; @_klburke