Water: A Megatrends Perspective

Abstract

Efforts aimed at equitably and sustainably allocating water to avoid local imbalances between supply and demand and thus longer term resource scarcity , too often focus on technical approaches to increase supply. Technical approaches, by nature, tend to ignore the challenge of incorporating the advances in social sciences to deal with the realities legacy agreements such as water allocation rights or other institutional frameworks such as price subsidies that impede an equitable and sustainable allocation of water. Historical approaches have largely tended to ignore concepts developed from within the economic and social sciences. The objectives of this contribution are thus twofold. First, to discuss the concepts the led to the development of thinking about the long-term and second, identifying those societal trends along with their drivers and enablers that are impacting demand for water given that both, in absolute and per capita basis, demand is likely to continue to grow. Leading from the analysis is the conclusion that water resources need to be viewed both as a public good (asset) and as an economic good (resource) and managed according. Furthermore, demand management is essential to achieve an equitable and sustainable resource allocation; addressing the supply side alone is unlikely to suffice in a growth in demand scenario. The chapter closes by suggesting that practitioners need to address the ‘willingness to pay’ for water and related services given that it is both a public and economic good. Furthermore, they should consider and encourage the codification of different water standards by first addressing its associated ‘value-in-use’. Only then is there the potential of having ‘pricing’ mechanisms functioning effectively in allocating water in an equitable and sustainable way.