In 2026/2027, Onewater, UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Programme, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and other partners are turning their lens toward the hidden intersections of water, ecosystems, and human life.

This sixth edition’s theme, “Out of Sight,” spans the full breadth of water and health, how water shapes health, longevity and well-being, and shines its brightest light on the part nobody photographs: wastewater.

Dignified toilets, clean rivers, and the damage untreated sewage causes to people and ecosystems. It also includes the largely unseen work of wastewater surveillance: collecting samples, analyzing what communities flush away and what is circulating in the community, detecting emerging health and ecosystem threats, and turning evidence into early action for animal, people and environmental protection. These are stories that almost never get photographed, because nobody commissions them. That’s the heart of Out of Sight, and where this edition’s main prize is aimed.

But the theme is wider than the pipe. Any story about water and health belongs here: the river that cools a city, the ritual bath, the swimming lesson, the river that quietly reveals the pathogens circulating through a community, the tap that finally runs safe. All of it is Out of Sight territory, and all of it can be selected, exhibited and published.

To find out more please go to the direct link.