News

Winners of Walk of Water -Water Towers 2025 photo contest

UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme, Onewater and partners have unveiled the winners of the Walk of Water 2025 - Water Towers photo contest. The contest invited photographers to shed light on the critical issue of disappearing glaciers, celebrate the diverse ways water is stored, and redefine the concept of ‘water towers.’

Ama Dalam West Ridge

The photo contest is part of the Walk of Water: An Intergenerational Journey, an initiative promoted by UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) and OneWater to merge art, culture and science to share clear messages on the state of water around the world. 

This year's call received over 7,000 entries from 104 countries

The theme, Water Towersaligned with the UN World Water Development Report 2025 on mountains and glaciers, to be launched on 21 March, encouraged creative depictions of glaciers, traditional water towers, and innovative water storage solutions.

The competition awarded 20,000 € in prizes, supported by MPB, the Asian Development Bank, Onewater, and the City of Burghausen.

The diverse submissions feature breathtaking scenes of ice climbers in the Alps, indigenous festivals in the Andes, the world’s highest city, Africa’s last glacier, and polar landscapes, underscoring humanity’s connection to water and the need to protect mountains and glaciers, our planet’s natural water towers.

The photographs will be featured in a global traveling exhibition throughout 2025 and will be visible on UNESCO fences in Paris from 11 March 2025. 

Make your own glacier

Ladakh, India. The stupas are created by channeling water from higher altitudes through underground pipes. As the water is sprayed upward in subzero temperatures, it freezes into towering ice formations that can hold millions of liters of water.

Make your own glaciers
A blanket for Presena glacier

Presena glacier, Italy. A part of the snowpack on the top of the mountain covered with geotextile sheets to prevent ice melting

Presena glacier
Frozen Currents, Flowing Warnings


Svalbard, Norway. A towering iceberg wall rises gently from the ocean.

Svalbard. a Norwegian archipelago