Episode 2: Civilizations - Preview

'Crisis' examines how the planet’s changing water cycle is forcing us to change our relationship with water. An increasingly, globalized agricultural industry is turning precious water reserves into profit, “mining” water faster than it can be replaced. As Chairman Emeritus of Nestle, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe says, “.... the water issue is more urgent than the climate issue."

'Civilizations' turns our ‘water lens’ on human history. Starting in Ancient Egypt, it charts the critical role water plays in history, and around the world we see the birth of civilizations on the banks of the great rivers: Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Indus and Yellow. We end by asking if we can guarantee water supplies of the future?

'Pulse' opens on the rock and ice of Greenland, where geologist Stephen Mojzsis shares a new theory on how water first arrived on Planet Earth. See the world’s longest insect migration, and meet the Munoz family, who use cutting edge time-lapse rigs to show the rare spectacle of deserts around the world exploding from barren wastelands into rich carpets of flowers. But the pulse is under threat.