Pulitzer Prize winner and University of Florida professor Jack Davis thinks people need to humble themselves more toward water.

"The water doesn't belong to us, we belong to the water," he said. "Without water, humanity would not exist, life would not exist."

Davis, who won the 2018 Pulitzer for The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, and environmental journalist and professor Cynthia Barnett will speak Thursday at an event hosted by the Florida Humanities Council at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Barnett's latest book, Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, was nominated for the National Book Award and was a finalist for the 2016 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award,

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be attended by representatives for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Keith Simmons of the Florida Humanities Council said he hopes to hear a conversation around water and the state.

"The solutions we craft here in Florida might be a model for the rest of the country," he said.

Davis said Florida has a unique relationship with water, but one that isn't always valued.

"I grew up in the Tampa Bay area so water has always been a part of my life," he said. "It's a very easy thing to take for granted. Particularly around Tampa Bay, water is everywhere you look. As a kid, growing up, I spent most of my time in the water. ... When I didn't have it there was something significant missing to my daily experiences."

Barnett said she believes this generation may be the first generation in almost half a century to inherit an unclean water supply.

"In the early '70s there was a new ethic that swept Florida and swept the nation. We got more conscience about pollution, we quit sending raw sewage into the ecosystem. ... Americans had enough and convinced politicians to take better care of water. Part of what happened in the 50 years since is that there's a certain complacency."

Barnett said with increasing pressure to reduce regulation and the political divisiveness of talking about climate change, negligence toward caring for the water has led to increased pollution and algal blooms.

She believes talking about literature and water, as in her latest book, which she said puts "poetry over pipelines," can be a solution.

"We might disagree on issues or political parties but books allow us to create this deep space and come together and I really see water as that same connecting force," she said. "Ethical water policy, clean water, is not an issue of being a Democrat or Republican or too much government or too little government, it's really good government. I think we can and should elevate water above politics. I think it's the defining element in our state. It's the defining element for life."

Contact Divya Kumar at dkumar@tampabay.com or . Follow @divyadivyadivya.