ABSTRACT
Water scarcity is crippling the economies in many countries. It is impeding the growth of industries whose chains depend upon water availability, and is adversely affecting the sustainability of communities and ecosystems on which they depend. “Business – as – usual’’ is not a viable option, for the simple reason that by 2030 the global demand for water would be more than 40% of the supply. McKinsey Consultants in a highly thought-provoking document entitled, “Charting
our water future: Economic frameworks to inform decision-making’’ (2009), came up with a strategy of solutions-driven dialogue among the stakeholders to address water scarcity issues during the period upto 2030, on the basis of an integrated fact base about technical levers and their costs. Chapter 2.2 is built on these concepts. The important point that McKinsey report makes is that, though it is a formidable
problem, it is entirely possible to close the growing gap between water supply and demand in an affordable and sustainable manner. The report identifies supply-and demand-side measures that could constitute a
more cost effective approach to closing the water gap and achieve saving for BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). These countries collectively account for 40 percent of the world’s population, 30 percent of global GDP and 42 percent of projected water demand in 2030. The report makes the important point that solutions to these challenges are in prin-
ciple possible and need not be prohibitively expensive. For a given basin, integrated solutions for closing the demand-supply gap in a cost-effective way are sought on the basis of three approaches: (i) technical improvements, (ii) improving water productivity under a constant set of economic activities, and (iii) ways of actively reducing withdrawals by changing the set of underlying economic activities, through an understanding of how the economic activities in a given country are affected by the reduction of withdrawals.
