Megacities and pollution

Megacities and Pollution is a photodocumentary project that analyzes three of the greatest environmental challenges of the 21st century: plastic waste, poor air quality and water pollution. The project focuses on three megacities in Asia, the most populated continent in the world: Metro Manila, Delhi and Jakarta.

The densely populated metropolitan area of Manila, in the Philippines, is a global plastic leakage hotspot with serious impacts on the health of the ocean.

New Delhi is the capital city with the worst air quality of the world, while India is home to fourteen of the twenty cities with the most polluted air on the planet.

And Jakarta, in Indonesia, is the fastest sinking capital city in the world, a consequence of erosion resulting from the urgent demand for clean water and rising sea levels caused by global warming.

What is happening in these cities?

What are the causes of these extreme levels of pollution?

What about the consequences for the population?

Relentless population growth —there are now close to 8 billion people on the planet— is creating an increasingly urbanized and less rural world. One in two people live in an urban area, and one in eight live in one of the 33 megacities —cities with more than 10 million inhabitants— that exist in the world.

UN projections estimate that by 2050, two out of every three people are likely to be living in cities or other urban centers.

The project includes three stories: Plastics Are Choking the Sea (Manila), We Thought it Was Fog (Delhi), and The Most Expensive Polluted Water in the World (Jakarta), accompanied by a visual talk —the first of many we hope to do at Sonda Internacional.

Each story takes us to one of the three megacities, while the talk is a live presentation on stage that focuses on the case of Delhi and the scourge of air pollution.

Sonda Internacional specializes in visual journalism. We recommend viewing the stories on your computer so you can browse the photos on a larger screen than that offered by standard mobile devices.

Direction and photography: Santi Palacios | Text: Maribel Izcue | Video coordination: Mikel Konate | Design coordination: Jorge Usar | Communication Laia Pascual | Contributing editors: Simón Casal y Pablo Tosco | Contributing editor in English: Lily Mayers | Field Production (India): Suyash Shrivastava | Field production (Indonesia): Meidella Syahni | Field production (Philippines): Rica Concepcion y Maria Angela C. Noble | Web development: Full Circle | Spanish-English translation: Colleen Terry / Dixit | Color grading: Joan Roig | Advisor: José Félix Barrón | Editing visual talk: Eloi Tomàs | Subtitling visual talk: Tornasol | Visual talk presentation: Eixchelt González | India map design and animation: Adrián Guerra | Event Photography: Josefina Arista | Poster design: Vikö Sviäs.

Work produced with the support of a 2019 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation.