6 Personal Acts

Honour water. Learn from her. Educate yourself. Act with care. Join the movement.

6 Acts of Water

Every act of care brings us closer to a world where every drop is valued, protected, and free to sustain life.

If you are already following any of the acts listed below, please let us know.

Act 1

Learn and calculate your water footprint

  • Every choice - what you eat, what you buy, how you travel, how you use AI - has a water footprint, much of it invisible.

    Learn about your water footprint with our Water Footprint 101 guide, then use our calculator to estimate yours.

    A note on the calculator: it is based on US consumption averages and does not currently account for the water footprint of AI or other digital services. If you live elsewhere, treat the result as an indication rather than an exact measurement.

Act 2

Adopt water-saving habits as a practice, not a solution

  • Small, manageable changes at home are worth making. Our guide to six key ways of saving water offers a place to start.

    But personal water-saving habits are not the solution to the global water crisis. Agriculture and industry account for the vast majority of freshwater use, far more than household showers and taps. Adopt these practices because they matter,  while recognising that the larger changes require action at the level of policy, industry and infrastructure.

Act 3

Dive deeper: access our water library

  • Watch, read, learn and dive into these incredible materials about the water issue.

  • H₂O: The Molecule That Made Us, the award-winning three-part PBS/WGBH series, traces humanity's relationship with water, from the rise of civilisations to the water challenges we face today.

    Water Is Love, Ripples of Regeneration: The documentary follows young people restoring water cycles through community-led, decentralised projects in India, Kenya and Portugal. A hopeful, practical counterpart to the crisis-focused history above, it also offers a glimpse of the restoration work explored in Act 5.

    Speaking to Water: Pat McCabe, an Indigenous activist from the Dean nation, shares how water is a living relative and calls for building respectful, reciprocal relationships with it instead of exploiting it as a resource.

    The Taste of Honey: Shorbanu Khatun’s story offers a window into the realities of women living on the frontlines of the climate and water crisis. A tiger widow from the Sundarbans, she navigates loss, rising seas, cyclones and saltwater intrusion while fighting to protect her livelihood and access to fresh water.

    What Does Water Want? Erica Gies, author of “Water Always Wins,” explores water’s unique role in the web of life, and how we might repair and reshape our relationship with it. Rather than telling water what to do, maybe we should start by asking what it wants?

    Earthy lore: mermaids, their origins and how they remind us to protect women and the planet. This short video explores stories of mermaids across different cultures and the relationships they represent with water, showing how storytelling and social media can help preserve knowledge, shape values and inspire the protection of our waters.

Act 4

Join the Water movement

    • Surfers Against Sewage (UK): campaigns for clean rivers, lakes and oceans, and supports communities using citizen science and collective action to hold polluters and government to account.

    • WaterAid: works with communities around the world to improve access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.

    • Living Rivers Europe: a network working to protect and restore Europe's rivers.

    • EU Citizen Science: a platform connecting citizen-science projects across Europe, including projects focused on environmental monitoring and water.

    • The Rivers Trust – Big River Watch

Act 5

Start or join local water restoration

  • Water restoration is a systems approach: rather than treating rivers, forests, soils and wetlands as separate problems, it looks at how they work together to sustain healthy water cycles.

    Sometimes called Slow Water, this approach focuses on restoring ecosystems and working with natural water flows, from planting and protecting trees to restoring wetlands, rivers and soils, and creating landscapes that can absorb and retain water.

    It builds on Indigenous and traditional ways of caring for land and water, recognising that many of these solutions are not new, but knowledge that has been carried for generations.

  • Read more about the Slow Water Movement.

    Watch the 12-minute animation video “How Water Makes Climate”

Act 6

Share Your Story

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