ABSTRACT
This chapter provides discrete insights into the opportunities and potential already being developed in urban regions of the Pacific Rim to address issues for negotiating the dynamic politics related to water, ensuring equitable access, and improving urban water sustainability. Water is a strategic resource, and the management of this resource is an activity of highly contested geo-political terrain as the hydrologic cycle and surface and subsurface systems of water frequently transcend political boundaries. The politics of water, also known as hydro-politics, unfolds through trans-national and inter-state negotiations, and can be understood by recognizing the many ways in which societies use and relate to water. The inadequacies of historical and contemporary management have resulted in professional and academic calls to identify collaborative and cross-sectoral strategies that effectively and equitably negotiate the politics related to water resources, ensuring water access and improving water sustainability. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
