AR RISING
Sustainability You Can See
WWF Free Rivers
Experience the power of rivers
When was the last time you pondered your nearest river? “Most people only think about rivers when they drive across a bridge or camp near one,” says Catherine Blancard, the World Wildlife Fund’s director of freshwater strategy. But the WWF Free Rivers app hopes to get you to think more deeply about them.
Using AR (augmented reality), the app lets you view a digital diorama of a free-flowing river and nearby farms and villages, right in the room you’re in. This detailed landscape of hills, river, and agricultural ecosystem is interactive. You’ll see what happens when a dam is placed in such a way that it cuts off the water supply to the people, animals, and plants downstream. You’ll visualize how droughts and flooding can destroy land and life. And you’ll learn how a dam can be built to have as little effect on a flowing river as possible.
“With WWF Free Rivers, when people see it, they get it really quickly and more deeply than any infographics, papers, or presentations we could have offered,” Blancard says. Because of that, WWF is now looking into using AR to address other areas related to its mission: endangered species, oceans, forests, food sources, and climate change.
“Classrooms, governments, energy companies and dam builders, local communities that live along rivers—they’re all very different audiences, but we’re trying to get them to understand the same thing: how they can live in harmony with the world around them.”