Yann Arthus-Bertrand returns with Freshwater’s stark lesson

Freshwater by – From a “Tree of Life” in Kenya that effectively acts as a living water well to the fragile salt–fresh boundary of Senegal’s mangrove ecosystem, photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand returns with Freshwater—out 11 June—co-written with biologist Bill François. The b

In Tsavo East National Park, Kenya, the ground looks thirsty at first glance. Then you see it: a spiderweb of animal tracks splaying out from an ancient acacia—locals call it the Tree of Life. Under that single canopy. life gathers. again and again. as if water’s smallest promise can still hold a continent in place.

The photograph is by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, whose work is famously captured from above. It was taken in the parched terrain of Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park. and it’s now part of a new book. Freshwater. out 11 June. The project looks at the world through freshwater systems and is co-written with biologist Bill François.

François calls the Tree shot an “iconic picture from Yann’s work.” He points to the tree’s role as something more than scenery. “A tree can spread 400 litres of fresh water a day in the surroundings by leaves’ transpiration,” he says. “And in its shade. temperature drops by 5°C.” In François’s description. the acacia is helping underground water reach the surface and nurture life—acting. as he puts it. as a living water well.

Freshwater is built around that kind of contradiction: we’re surrounded by water, yet fresh water can be vanishingly scarce. The authors frame it as a resource that sometimes seems limitless only until you look closely at how much of it actually exists.

They ask readers to imagine that all the water on Earth is gathered into a single drop. In that thought experiment, the drop would be 1385 kilometres in diameter, representing over a million cubic kilometres of water. “At first glance. this seems enormous. beyond what we can imagine. ” they write—yet they add that it is less than the distance from Paris to Rome.

Then the scale collapses again. The book’s next image—fresh surface water shown next to the size of Earth—shrinks to something almost impossible to grasp. Even more dramatic is the minuscule, full-stop’s worth of fresh surface water: the drop would be a mere 56 kilometres in diameter.

“If Earth were the size of a hot-air balloon. this fresh surface water would fit inside a wineglass. ” the authors write. They underline the stakes with the life that depends on it: “Tropical forests. civilizations. and living beings—from earthworms to giant sturgeons—depend on this small drop. ” the book says. adding that it represents less than a thousandth of the total water on Earth.

That thirst for scale—how to see what’s fragile—runs through the book’s other photographs too. One shows white pelicans in the Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary in Senegal. François describes the park not as a picturesque outpost but as an ecosystem shaped by salt and fresh water meeting at close range. “This park is a mangrove ecosystem. so a very important place for many species. at the interface between salt water and fresh water. ” he says. “It plays a particularly vital role for juvenile saltwater fish.”.

He also connects that boundary to global fishing. “Two thirds of fish caught in the world’s marine fisheries have grown in an estuary,” he says.

But the book doesn’t treat that relationship as stable. “Like many other places, this estuary is threatened by the human activities impacts on the river,” François says. “In this case. damming of the river and draining of nearby plains for agriculture led to an overgrowth of water plants that clogged the ecosystem and created a mosquito and water snails invasion.”.

For the book’s visual rhythm, water is never only a subject—it’s a changing condition. Another photograph shows a river on the Auyán tepui in Venezuela, snapped by Arthus-Bertrand. Below is his image of a waterfall on Bråsvellbreen glacier on Nordaustlandet Island, Norway.

The authors widen the lens from living systems to the physics and chemistry that make freshwater behave like a world of its own. “The beauty of fresh water comes from the complex interplay of its molecules’ physics and chemistry,” they write. They describe how salt and air dissolve in it. how animals can swim in it. and how ice floats when other frozen substances sink. They also point out that freshwater can exist as solid. liquid and gas—giving readers running rivers. vast and exquisite lakes. glaciers. polar ice caps. storm clouds and fog.

Still, beauty comes with time—and freshwater is often quick to change. The book says fresh water can be transient. altering the look of landscapes in scales that span seconds as well as millennia. It adds a stark comparison for how long different parts of the water cycle last: “A drop of water remains in the atmosphere for a short period. about ten days. compared to several thousand years in the ocean.” From there. the authors describe how rare it is for a drop to end up in the sky and return into that other state: “Therefore. it is quite rare for a drop to have the chance to end up in the sky; this happens on average every 2. 737 years.”.

Between the Tree of Life’s shade and the clogged estuary where mosquitoes and water snails move in. Freshwater aims at one unmistakable conclusion: freshwater is not just part of the planet—it’s the planet’s thinnest. most changeable skin. And once you see how little of it there is. and how quickly it can be tipped. the images stop looking like scenery and start looking like warnings.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand Freshwater Bill François Tsavo East National Park Tree of Life Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary Senegal river delta mangrove ecosystem Auyán tepui Bråsvellbreen glacier freshwater scarcity water cycle