Giving Compass' Take:

• Adele Peters reports that Milan Radisics is photographing water from above to document human interference in natural systems to bring attention to the world's water crisis. 

• How can funders work to spread awareness of the world's water crisis? 

• Read about three ways to address the world water crisis. 

On a website called Water.Shapes.Earth, Hungarian photographer Milan Radisics documents water from above, revealing unexpected views of both wilderness and landscapes changed by humans–like the strange beauty of a bright green radioactive pond that stores industrial waste in southern Spain. In France, he photographed abandoned oyster farms. In Iceland, he photographed the broken fragments of the shrinking Hoffellsjökull glacier.

Even in places like Venice, where 20 million people visit each year, the aerial view of a nearby lagoon looks unfamiliar. “Ordinary things, shown from the new angle, in the new light, and in the new composition, provide huge stopping power, and make people rethink their habitual statements,” he says. Radisics is a National Geographic contributor with a long career, but only began taking aerial photos, with the help of a drone, in the last year.

The images show both how water has shaped human life, and how humans have transformed water. Orange trees planted in hillside terraces in Spain use limited water from irrigation channels. Massive salt ponds were used, centuries ago, to hold stockpiles of salt to preserve food for explorers to take on ships. In Germany, a pond holds by-products next to a recycling center. A photo of the Danube River–which shrunk to record low water levels this summer–shows one impact of drought driven by climate change.

Radisics believes that the photos can make people more aware of the challenges faced by the world’s freshwater supply. “I am not a guy who wants to fight by demonstrations on the streets,” he says. “I believe in the power of aesthetics.” He wants the landscapes, which look like abstract paintings, to inspire people, not scare them.

Read the full article about seeing the world’s water crisis from above by Adele Peters at FastCompany.