Water People Stories

This project explores the importance of water in our daily life. I tell the stories of people whom I encounter along my journeys around the world. The aim is to understand and transform how societies see, value and impact freshwater in rivers and wetlands.

Find a 9 minute introduction to the project in my YouTube channel Pia's Journey!

(click on the picture above)

I do not look for the spectacular places that you may find in the news. I search for the normal, daily routines and their changes.

I observe and document the impacts linked to the water crises, and the role these play for the local people. I analyse the connection between people and their water, focusing on the cultural significance of rivers and wetlands, and on the links – or missing connection – to their freshwater.

I was born amidst rivers in the Italian Po Valley. I hold a PhD in wetland ecology and have worked in Brazilian Amazonia and worldwide tropical wetlands most of my scientific life. I lead interviews and take social documentary photographs of people and water since 1986, when I first visited the Amazon River.

As a photographer, I employ visual communication to integrate scientific knowledge and data with nature conservation. I rely on the synergies of science, visual communication and art to communicate over borders and find solutions which help protect and conserve wetlands, and the people who live there.

Dona Ana: "No one starves in Amazonian floodplains"

Dona Ana lives in the floodplains of the Amazon river. Her life is in floating houses near the city of Manaus, and her fields are upstream. “Only who is lazy suffers hunger in the floodplains”, she says. “The river is full of fish, the fields on the soils of the Solimoes River are fertile. Sometimes the water rises so high, that our fields are flooded, and we lose them, but the next year they are even more fertile. In some years, the water does not rise as much as it did before. But we are never hungry where we live.”

2017, Rio Solimoes near Manaus, Brazil

Klothilde: "The effort to bring back the mountain bogs is worthwhile"

Klothilde is a tour guide in the Dolomites of Bruneck and knows every detail about the nature there. Natural lakes in the mountains are very seldom found nowadays because they have been actively dried by the inhabitants over the decades, so that pastures are available for the cows. With much effort and lots of money, bog lakes are being recreated in the mountain environment above 2000 m asl. The natural diversity slowly comes back: cotton grass, fish, frogs and salamanders are here already. Now we only need the rain.

2023, Bruneck, Italy

Ailyn (Tea for Wildlife): "Without the forest, no water, no life"

The people of the Iban Tribe in Northern Borneo are committed to preserving the forests where the last orangutans live. But the forests are also their own livelihood. Cleared hills, the dammed lake – life in the forest has become a challenge. The people still live traditionally in their Long House and come here every day to plant trees. They do not give up and with the aid of NGOs and people like Ailyn who are there to help, they still have hope. Now it is about waiting for rain so that the saplings can grow. And when the forest is back, the Orangutans will be too. And the rivers will flow.

2018, Batang Ai, Sarawak, Malaysia

Ulrich "It's challenging to survive without infrastructure"

Ulrich is a retired architect who decided to survive in the Dolomites, just with nature. No running water, no electricity. In winter, he has to take care of the natural water source: it has to remain accessible. In the middle of Europe, water still means real survival.

2022, Dolomiti near Monte Pana, Santa Cristina, Italy

Sylvie "Tea is our culture"

With her family, Sylvie runs a little shop on the main mountain road in Tamil Nadu. They sell tea and fresh organic fruits, and all kinds of food. Her children help as well. They do not have running water, they get water from the rain and carry it from a well. The family grows their own crops and so far it works okay at 1600 m asl. Her specialty is tea with milk which she cooks in front of the people.

2023, Yercaud, India

Giorgia sells drinks at 1849m

When the people come up to the mountain cabin, they need water after their long tiring walks. We do not have water here, we have a source of natural water at the other place, Rifugio S. Donisio at Forcella Antracisa, just below at 1697m asl - but not here at 1849. The water is pumped up and collected in huge water tanks on the mountains above the house. If you walk in the mountains, and sleep higher than the natural sources, you know how valuable water is.

2022, Dolomiti Antelao - Pieve di Cadore, Italy

Page and project under construction

Please check my Instagram page

@water.people.stories

Introduction

My water and people stories are my personal story. I was born in a former wetland, strongly modified by humans over 2000 years or more. My life as a scientific researcher was focused on freshwater wetlands, tropical floodplains, and their use by people.

 have been photographing landscapes, water, people, wildlife, plants, forests all my life. I am a biologist, researcher with a PhD in tropical biology and floodplain ecology. I have seen many tropical countries all over the world and always visited the wetlands.

Today, I go back in memory and read my diaries. Every day I wrote what I saw, what I thought, whom I talked to and what I learned. The world is changing and over the decades, I recorded some of this change.

I was born in 1965, and in 1986, as a young biologist m, I made my dream,m come true and went to the Amazon for the first time in my life. I went back there several dozens of times, and I lived there for many years.

Today, I am back in Europe where I was born, but I am still closely connected to my friends, colleagues and people who struggle about water all over the world.

Let me take you on this journey through the wetlands and the people I met in almost 6 decades.

#waterpeople #waterpeoplesmiles #waterpeopleconnection #riverculture #rivers #freshwater #floodplain #wetlands #connectedtonature

This project explores the cultural significance of wetlands and the stories of people and their water.

#piaparolinphoto