How Can We Ensure Clean Water for All? [Slide Show]

An exhibition of inventions, artwork and artifacts explores our relationship with water and how the world might cope with future scarcity of this invaluable resource

By Steven Ashley

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You are a bag of water—some three quarters H2O at birth, falling to three fifths in adulthood—so the fate of Earth's freshwater resources in large part delineates your fate as well.

"Surface Tension: The Future of Water," explores the matchless beauty of water and celebrates humankind's diverse interactions with our most important molecule. The exhibition, being mounted by the Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin as part of New York City's upcoming World Science Festival May 30 to June 3, also considers various critical aspects of the present state of our water supply as well as what may happen to it in time.

» View a slide show of selected images from the exhibition

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Earth has plentiful water, but only a tiny fraction is available for human use, and a still smaller amount is potable. The seven billion people living on our planet rely on the same 1 percent of available freshwater as did every previous generation. In the meantime many of us use far too much freshwater whereas many more cannot find enough to use at all, and climate change can only exacerbate the problem—a disturbing prospect that may result global tensions, even wars.

The interactive show, which comprises more than 50 different exhibits developed by scientists, engineers, artists and designers, delves into the multiplicity of our relations with the very stuff of life, playing on water's unique physical properties, its crucial roles in living, political and economic systems, and new ways by which it can be harnessed, purified and distributed.

Jump in.

"Surface Tension," which first opened in Dublin, will run from May 30 through August 11, 2012, at the Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New York City (free admittance). For more information, visit the Science Gallery’s "Surface Tension" site and the exhibit’s World Science Festival page.

» View a slide show of selected images from the exhibition

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