The California Academy of Sciences and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science have launched their first ever Google Earth based film and interactive tour, A Global Water Story. The production team, including Museum research associate Bob Raynolds and curator of space science Ka Chun Yu, leveraged technology from Google Earth to plunge users into water issues relevant at global and regional scale relevant to the American Southwest.

Access to freshwater is something people in developed countries take for granted. But dwindling resources, growing populations, and an increasingly variable climate are affecting freshwater availability around the world. For the first time, a Google Earth film and tour will bring together information about global environmental processes that affect freshwater supplies (including geography and climate) and the ways humans have adapted these natural systems to thrive in unlikely places. Utilizing the power of Google Earth, the film travels from the Himalayas to the Middle East and on to the arid southwest of North America to explore freshwater systems in depth, and the innovative solutions people have developed to make more out of less. The interactive tour encourages users to explore the story at their leisure by clicking on the interactive map. Informational pop-up windows about water conservation projects around the world as well as those closer to home will inform and inspire users to learn about what they can do.

Google Earth Tour

Explore A Global Water Story on your own in this interactive Google Earth tour. Learn about innovative strategies people are doing to conserve precious freshwater resources and how you can make a difference.

» Download the KMZ file (19MB, playable in Google Earth)

If you do not have Google Earth, download the free software.

Worldviews Network

To learn more about A Global Water Story, visit www.worldviews.net/a-global-water-story.