ABSTRACT
Facing the challenges of sustainable development and climate change, water supply and sanitation services in developed countries should first review their history to understand where they stand. A comparative approach on Europe, the United States, and Australia leads to a discussion of other evolutionary factors beyond the recurring public vs. private debate: technology innovations and later territorial recompositions are intertwined with changes in the management scales (upscaling and downscaling), evolutions towards integration vs. unbundling of WSS chains, and issues of rearticulation with water resources management. The conclusion stresses the need for multilevel governance allowing for cost recovery of water services from tariffs, taxes, and transfers, i.e. in Europe, payments for environmental services between users of the same watersheds.
