A campaign to stop people rinsing dishes before loading the dishwasher turned Icebergs Pool into "the country's largest kitchen sink".

The Finish Australia, National Geographic and Rural Aid partnership aims to donate up to 6.8 million litres of water to drought-affected places across Australia.

Rural Aid chief executive Charles Alder said the charity would send it "to those people most in need", the first being the Southern Darling Downs in Qld where "they're likely to run out of water in November".

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"Then we'll be looking at where we've received the majority of calls for water ...but possibly the Upper Hunter [next]."

Mr Alders said Rural Aid was taking about 15 calls a day from people - most in NSW - who needed household water.

"[They] are running out of drinking water; children are bathing in buckets," he said.

The launch turned the pool into a kitchen sink to highlight the water that could be saved if Australians just scraped their dishes instead of rinsing them.

It's estimated that could mean 20 billion litres of water a year saved nationwide.

For every person who makes the #FinishWaterWaste pledge on social media, Finish will donate 40 litres of water.

As part of the campaign, National Geographic developed a short video in Murrurundi, showing the reality of life with drought.

Photographer Adam Ferguson said he'd seen many drought-stricken regions during his work travels.

"It broke my heart to come home and meet hard-working Aussies who have been impacted by drought themselves, seeing first-hand what a life without water is really like."