Context
Untreated sewage, agricultural leachates and industrial effluents containing a growing array of xenobiotic synthetic chemicals ever increasingly pollute water resources and threaten human and ecosystem health. The availability and quality of water resources is closely linked. The more we pollute, the harder it is to provide clean water; overabstraction and climate change induced water scarcity exacerbate pollution problems. Economic valuation of water resources use and pollution impacts remains inadequate and challenging, as does financing the protection and sustainable management of water resources and the provision of water supply and sanitation. With the expansion and intensification of pollution under business as usual the costs of clean water become progressively unaffordable. As the different groups in society compete for water often the benefits and costs do not accrue to the same groups. Increasing water scarcity and deteriorating quality, and their negative impact on sustainable development globally, risk deepening inthe expense of or by ignoring the poor. Conventional fragmented sectoral approaches are clearly not working. Population increase, urbanisation, economic development and agglomeration of economic activity, consumption patterns, and public concern about greater equity and about the planet’s sustainability are among the primary drivers in reshaping management strategies for securing water quantity and quality and for balancing sectoral demands, both in developing and developed countries.
