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In South Asia—home to a quarter of the world's population, but only 5% of its freshwater resources— development is taking a heavy toll on life's most basic necessity.
The majority of India's water sources are polluted. A lack of access to safe water contributes to a fifth of its communicable diseases. Each day in the booming, nuclear-armed nation, diarrhea alone kills more than 1,600 people.
In "South Asia's Troubled Water," Anna-Katarina Gravgaard and Bill Wheeler traveled to India, Bangladesh and Nepal, to explore the role of local innovators and international actors in aggravating or alleviating the region's water crisis. Their reporting took them from the slums of Delhi to parched rural deserts, and from monsoon-ravaged Bangladesh to the Himalayas.
After producing works in The Washington Times, The Caravan, and Time Video their reporting now takes them to Copenhagen.
This story was reported for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting as part of the Copenhagen News Collaborative, a cooperative project of several independent news organizations. Check out the feed here from Mother Jones.