Diploma Lecture 27th April 2015

As the highest water bills ever land on doormats across the UK this April, this film investigates the future of the world's water, and paints a disturbing picture of a world running out of the most basic of life's essentials.

Professor Iain Stewart continues his epic exploration of how the planet has shaped human history.This time he explores our complex relationship with water. Visiting spectacular locations in Iceland, the Middle East and India, Iain shows how control over water has been central to human existence.

We can survive for weeks without food, but only days without water: it is the essential element of life. Yet many millions of us live in parched deserts around the world. In the second episode of Human Planet, we discover how the eternal quest for water brings huge challenges - and ingenious solutions - in the driest places on Earth.

Most of our water comes from rivers, and environmentalists fear we are pushing some of them and the wildlife they support to the edge. With many of Britain's rivers at the limit of what can sustainably be taken from them, Simon Boazman investigates whether the water industry and its regulators are doing enough to protect the nation's rivers.

Fresh water defines the distribution of life on land. Follow the descent of rivers from their mountain sources to the sea. Watch spectacular waterfalls, fly inside the Grand Canyon and explore the wildlife in the world's deepest lake.

As pioneers explored and found their way across the vast continent of America, they were frequently stopped by poor or hostile environments such as the desert regions of Arizona and Nevada.

In this final episode, Dallas examines what it takes to keep seven billion humans alive with food, energy and water.

Series which tells the story of how big business feeds us by transforming simple commodities into everyday necessities and highly profitable brands

This major new series tells the untold story of how big business feeds us by transforming simple commodities into everyday necessities and highly profitable brands. The first episode tells the extraordinary story of how the bottled water industry has grown from nothing to become one of the biggest success stories in the modern food and beverage industry in just 40 years.

The Great Rift Valley channels a huge diversity of waterways - rivers, lakes, waterfalls, caustic springs and coral seas - spanning from Egypt to Mozambique. Some lake and ocean deeps harbour previously unseen life-forms, while caustic waters challenge life to the extreme.

Brian Cox explores how the search for aliens has followed the search for water.