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Night Heron, Anacostia River
Photograph by Skip Brown
A night heron eats a dead fish on a polluted bank of Washington, D.C.'s Anacostia River. Most of this trash washed into the river from the streets carrying with it many harmful chemicals.
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Drought-Stricken Field
Photograph by Jason Edwards
A dead tree stands like a headstone for this drought-devastated field of crops in New South Wales, Australia. Nearly 70 percent of water used around the world is used for agriculture.
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Smith Reservoir Drought
Photograph by John Eastcott & Yva Momatiuk
Droughts in the United States, such as the one that dried up this Colorado reservoir, can lead to higher prices for certain foods. Sometimes the consequences are more dire. A drought in Africa from 1984 to 1985 resulted in 750,000 deaths.
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Fen River Pollution
Photograph by Bob Sacha
The brownish waters of China's polluted Fen River flow through piles of garbage in the city of Taiyuan. Trash like this is unsightly, but less visible pollutants like chemical and pesticides can be far more disruptive to the river ecosystem and much harder to clean up.
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Dead Tilapia
Photograph by Gerd Ludwig
Fish die-offs, like this one in California's Salton Sea, can occur naturally when fish populations periodically overtake the plant population, causing low oxygen levels in the water.
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Laborer at Waste Water Plant
Photograph by Bob Sacha
A laborer releases waste water at a treatment plant in China's Hebei Province. China's rapid economic development and lax environmental enforcement have landed 16 of its cities on a World Bank list of the 20 most polluted urban areas in the world.
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