Roman bridge over the Guardiana River, Spain © UNESCO - A. Lacoudre

From the earliest times, water has had a key role in shaping how our lives are structured and how we move. During the Roman Republic, for example, some 2,500 years ago, the expansion of Rome created a number of problems with raw sewage being leaked into rivers. With the population's drinking water contaminated and diseases spreading, a solution was found: long aqueducts, or water channels, were built to carry fresh, clean water from the hills to the city. These architectural landmarks that eventually spread throughout the Roman Empire, from Syria to England, are still standing today in various forms and have come to represent one of the first great innovations in water management and transportation in the world.

The Bolivian city of Potosí was included in the list of World Heritage sites in part for how it exemplified innovative water management. In the 16th century, this area was regarded as the world's largest industrial complex. The extraction of silver ore relied on a series of hydraulic mills. The site includes the industrial monuments of the Cerro Rico, where water is provided by an intricate system of aqueducts and artificial lakes.

UNESCO's World Heritage Centre seeks to identify, protect and preserve cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. Many of the World Heritage sites are important in terms of water, sheltering unique or endangered biodiversity, for instance.

Through the construction of water-related elements within a settlement, either rural or urban, populations learn to shape their lives and livelihoods around water. Bridges provide access to different terrains and products; fountains provide easy access to water and, in more recent times, liven up town centres. Water shapes the life of a community, and it has also been central to how certain arts and crafts have developed over the centuries.

Because easy access to water is not always enjoyed by all, many people still bear the burden of needing to carry water from its source to their homes. This burden is usually borne by the women or children of a village and is a determining factor in education, health and gender systems worldwide. In terms of shaping our heritage, however, the containers in which water has been transported serve to identify and define cultures and civilizations from time immemorial. From the clay pots of the Middle Ages to the faience jugs of the modern era, from the conch shell used in Buddhist ceremonies to carry holy water to the glass bottles of today, understanding how water is carried and served throughout the world is essential in understanding the civilization from which the container comes. Economic status, political systems seen in decoration and technological advancement are all evident from the heritage shown in water containers.

Water shapes our lives in a great many ways: it forms the land on which we stand, we build our settlements around it, and we build bridges across it. Indeed, water has left an indelible mark on our world heritage, from the largest World Heritage site to the smallest water pot.