Nature made a big splash about water resources and management this week (check out the special; all free for a week). Yet more water news keeps dribbling out – probably because tomorrow is ‘World Water Day’, according to the United Nations (there’s some confusion about this actually; World Water Day is on 20 March each year, but 22 March in 2008, for reasons we can’t explain. But no matter).

The inventor of the ‘virtual water’ concept – a calculation method that determines how much water lies behind food production and other activities – has won the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize (Reuters; Stockholm International Water Institute). Congratulations to John Anthony Allan of the University of London, whose idea runs through modern water policy (and our special report).

The UN itself announced that it’s going to start using Lake Geneva to heat and cool its offices (AFP).

And a conference of the Israeli Water Association concluded that the government has failed to implement decisions reached six years ago to manage the ongoing water crisis (Haaretz.com).

On the lighter side of World Water Day, Dancing on Ice presenter Holly Willoughby campaigned for shorter showers and water conservation by… stripping off and taking a public shower in Trafalgar Square – where there is a giant fountain. No water being wasted there, then.