ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys some ideas about what water is – as a substance in its own right, and as an entity of major significance and symbolic importance. It explores basic considerations about the value of nature and its components. In many traditions, water is considered essential to rituals of cleansing, purification, baptism, healing, and the veneration of water deities; it is also widely regarded as a source of life and bringer of death, and serves as a subject of profound contemplation and inspiration. Improving the quantity and quality of water sources used for drinking and for irrigation is an essential condition of global political stability. Instrumental value is referred to as use value, extrinsic value, or value attributable to that which serves as a means to an end. Instrumental value is commonly cashed out in economic terms. Relational value, is more like an event than a property; it 'happens' or 'occurs' in the 'space' between consciousness and its object.
