World Water Day

Fresh water is essential to every living creature. This precious resource plays a leading role in everything from the food we drink to the energy we consume. That's why it's vital we protect fresh water from source to sea.

This World Water Day, we're celebrating individuals around the world who devote their lives to conserving fresh water and the wildlife and people who depend on it for survival. Take some time to explore their stories and support their efforts.  

Freshwater Facts

  • man collecting freshwater

    Sustainable access to fresh water and sanitation leads to healthier people and economic growth, which facilitate improved environmental management. In other words, healthy communities help preserve a healthy planet, and a healthy planet is the foundation for healthy communities.

  • Zebras

    Freshwater ecosystems support more than 125,000 species, from fish to aquatic mammals. They also provide a myriad of ecosystem services, including helping to regulate the temperature of the land and sea, creating clouds and affecting the weather, transporting nutrients and minerals, and providing water for drinking, recreation, farms and energy generation.

  • Gathega Dam supplying the water to power Guthega power station as part of the Snowy mountains hydro scheme, New South Wales, Australia.

    Energy and water are interdependent. And while the role of water in hydropower is obvious, water also irrigates biofuels, plays an essential role in fracking, and cools thermoelectric power plants like coal, nuclear, natural gas, and oil. All of these methods of energy production can have serious environmental and social consequences.

  • the Rio Grande River

    Protecting fresh water cannot happen alone. WWF partners with governments, businesses, international financial institutions and communities to ensure healthy freshwater systems exist to conserve wildlife and provide a sustainable future for all.

Take Action

Join us to make change. Speak up for species and places through WWF's Action Center.

Adopt a sockeye salmon

Make a symbolic sockeye salmon adoption to help save some of the world's most endangered animals from extinction and support WWF's conservation efforts.