Readers' photos - World Water Day 2012 - in pictures

Mimi Abera, 8, collecting water from a capped spring near her village in Kotoba, Ethiopia. Capping the spring has helped improve access and the quality of the water. Local mother Desta Milkesa says: "This water used to be very muddy, but now it is clean. My children were always sick, but now they are healthy. There used to be a lot of conflict among people fetching water because there was only a small trickle."
Photograph: Send A Cow/Flickr

'Six legs are better than two'. Boys in Kenya pump water up to the school with a 'moneymaker' foot pump - 30 minutes pumping a day will keep the tanks topped up
Photograph: charcoal_bora/Flickr

A woman in South Rajasthan, collects water from a source meant for irrigation purposes, for use in her home, where she has no running water
Photograph: Catapult Design/Flickr

Communities in the US, with access to satellite TV and McDonald's, but not to clean water or modern plumbing. Fifty per cent of the population on the Navajo Nation stand in-line every morning to collect water for daily use. The Navajo Nation, is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering 27,425 square miles, occupying portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. It is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States
Photograph: Catapult Design/Flickr

Children collecting water in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Taken as part of fieldwork research by the Development Planning Unit at University College London and the Department of Architecture at BRAC University, into how climate change will impact Bangladesh's urban poor, and how to plan for adaptation at the local level
Photograph: Development Planning Unit at UCL/Flickr

Women queueing to get access to the raised tube well in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Taken as part of fieldwork research into how climate change will impact Bangladesh's urban poor, and how to plan for adaptation at the local level
Photograph: Development Planning Unit at UCL/Flickr

Mankutloang Monmaheng collects water from her hafir in Lesotho. Hafirs are storage pits which collect rainwater during Lesotho's heavy downpours for use on gardens during the country's long dry seasons. Mankutloang also keeps fish in hers
Photograph: Ben Langdon/Send a Cow/Flickr

Boys play in lingering floodwater in El Salvador. In October 2011 Tropical Depression 12E swept through Central America, affecting 1 million people in El Salvador alone
Photograph: Christian Aid/Flickr

Mere Come collects water from the crowded water point at dawn in Bairro Luis Cabral, Maputo, Mozambique
Photograph: Eva-Lotta Jansson/WaterAid/Flickr

Children collect water in the Bagalkot District of Karnataka State in India. The photographer felt this 'revealed the struggle to get water for drinking and other purposes, and how children are burdened'
Photograph: M. Eswarappa/Flickr

Women carrying water up the hill from a capped spring near their village in Kotoba, Ethiopia. The essential task of fetching water usually falls to women and girls, interrupting girls' education
Photograph: Ben Langdon/ Send a Cow/Flickr

Glacial melt at, Laguna Milluni near Chacaltaya, Bolivia
Photograph: Christian Aid/Flickr

A hydroelectric dam at the head of the Zongo Valley, Boliva. Bolivia relies heavily on hydrolelectric power, fed by glacial melt. See our gallery of controversial dam projects to coincide with the 2012 World Water Forum
Photograph: Christian Aid/Flickr

A water-saving technique - a bag garden, which helps provide Joyce Akia's family with food in arid eastern Uganda. The bags have a central column of stones which filter out water to vegetables planted in holes cut around the sides of a sack
Photograph: Ben Langdon/Send a Cow/Flickr

Women participate in an indigenous march against the mining industry and oil exploitation, arriving in Cuenca, Ecuador, 12 March 2012. The group 's march will bring them to Quito, today to celebrate World Water Day Photograph: Robert Puglla/EPA

Filipino activists with painted faces wear signs and hold agriculture products during a demonstration to mark World Water Day 2012 outside the Department of Agriculture in Quezon City, Philippines. Their message is 'Water and Food Security', and they're calling for government programmes in efficient water irrigation to benefit Filipino farmers Photograph: Rolex Dela Pena/EPA

Water Aid staff stand in front of the Houses of Parliament, London, as they highlight the 783 million people still living without safe drinking water ahead of World Water Day. Around the globe, 300,000 people are taking part in the World Walks for Water and Sanitation to call on governments to bring about universal access for these services and put an end to the water and sanitation crisis
Photograph: David Parry/PA

A girl waits for a bucket to fill with water dripping from a pipe connected to a stream in Gauhati, India. There is no direct supply of water at homes in most of the poor neighborhoods and people have to depend on regulated supply of water from public taps erected on roadsides, with a single tap catering to some hundreds of households Photograph: Anupam Nath/AP

A woman from Ivory Coast washes her child with a bucket of fresh water in Abidjan, Ivory Coast 21 March 2012 Photograph: Legnan Koula/EPA

An Indian woman carries drinking water on the outskirts of Jammu, India Photograph: Channi Anand/AP

A view of the dusty and dry Nueva Esperanza shantytown in Lima, Peru. More than one in six people worldwide do not have access to safe freshwater a day to ensure their basic needs for drinking, cooking and cleaning Photograph: Martin Mejia/AP