ABSTRACT
Water is essential for growing food; for household water uses, including drinking, cooking, and sanitation; as a critical input into industry; for tourism and cultural purposes; and in sustaining the earth’s ecosystems. But this essential resource is under serious threat. Increasing national, regional, and seasonal water scarcities in much of the world pose severe challenges for national governments, the international development community, and, ultimately, for individual water users. The challenges of growing water scarcity are heightened by a) increasing costs of developing new water; b) rising energy prices that increase costs to deliver clean groundwater but also generate interest in hydropower dams; c) degradation of soils in irrigated areas; d) depletion of groundwater; e) water pollution and degradation of water-related ecosystems; and f) wasteful use of already developed supplies, often encouraged by subsidies and distorted incentives that influence water use.
