ABSTRACT
Behind public-water supplies lie the direct abstractions of water undertakings from rivers, lakes and groundwater. Whether economic growth is defined and measured using traditional national income accounts or alternative environmental sustainability frameworks, higher living standards and rising levels of economic activity will normally lead to increasing demands for the core water services. Economics and economists have traditionally concentrated on the efficiency aspects of the domestic-metering decision and pushed equity to one side. Recently, environmental considerations have also begun to figure prominently in debate. The proportion of annual household income devoted to water charges would increase, for the lowest decile, from 3.2 per cent to 3.7 per cent. For households the costs of sewerage and sewage disposal are generally recovered either through local taxation, or as an addition to the public water-supply tariff, whether that is volumetrically based or not.
