Contribute to Water Data Prize

News and press releases

Water companies, charities, NGOs, researchers, public bodies and PR agencies: send us your water news from anywhere in the world. A new plant, a pipe programme, test results, a funding award, a new device, a flood scheme or a drought plan.

What to send

• The release itself, in the email or as a Word file or a link.
• The date and time it goes out, and any embargo.
• One or more photos you own or have the right to share, with a caption and a credit for each. A photo of the place, the work or the people is better than a logo.
• The name and email of someone who can answer questions.

Subject line: News: your headline

Q&As

We interview people working on water: utility leaders and engineers, charity and NGO staff, researchers, and inventors of new ways to find, clean, move or save water. Suggest yourself or a colleague.

What to send

• Who it is: name, role and organisation.
• What they are working on, in two or three lines.
• Three or four things they could talk about.
• A recent photo of them that you have the right to share.

We send the questions by email or talk by phone or video. Answers run in the person's own words, edited for length, and we check quotes back with them before the Q&A runs.

Subject line: Q&A: name, organisation

Contributed articles

We publish bylined articles by people who work on water and know their subject first hand: how a utility cut its leaks, what a field trial showed, what a new rule means for small water systems, what a charity learned from ten years of wells.

What to send

• A pitch first, not a finished piece: the topic, what a reader will learn, and why you are the one to write it, in a few lines.
• Once we say yes: 700 to 1,500 words, original and not published anywhere else, including your own website or social media.
• Practical and based on evidence: figures with the report or dataset they come from, examples with names and places.
• Written by a named person, not an organisation, with a headshot and a bio of two or three sentences.
• Photos you own or have the right to share, with captions and credits.
• A line saying whether you or your employer sells, funds or gains from anything the article mentions. We print it at the foot of the article.

Subject line: Article pitch: your topic

Water project stories

Charities, NGOs, community groups and the people funding them: tell us about a project bringing safe water or sanitation to a village, a school, a clinic or a camp, anywhere in the world.

What to send

• Where it is and who it serves.
• What has changed, in numbers where you have them: people served, wells drilled or fixed, litres a day, the walk to water before and after.
• When it started or finished, and who built, ran and paid for it.
• Photos you have the right to share. If people are shown, they have agreed to it.

We may follow up for a Q&A with someone on the project.

Subject line: Project: place, country

Data and research

New figures on water use, leaks, quality, access, drought or flooding, from a study, a survey, a regulator or your own monitoring.

What to send

• A link to the full report or dataset, not only a summary.
• How the figures were gathered, in a line or two, and the years they cover.
• The publication date and any embargo.
• A contact who can answer questions on the method.

Subject line: Data: your subject