That photo above is of water from a river in Iceland. It’s part of photographer Edward Burtynsky’s series on Water. He introduces it this way:

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“While trying to accommodate the growing needs of an expanding, and very thirsty civilization, we are reshaping the Earth in colossal ways.”

And while he has visited Iceland and British Columbia to photograph water sources, most of his photos are of places where people use and abuse water — places where water is scarce; places where humans have tried to control water in canals or dams or wells; agricultural fields and aqua cultural expanses; waterfronts; the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon spills. His photographs can look like abstract paintings, but the impacts they’re documenting are very real:

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