Humanity uses a little less than half the water available worldwide
Yet occurrences of ihortages and droughts (-T--T-) are causing famine and distress in some areas, and industrial ind agricultural by-products are polluting water supplies. Since the world's population is sxpected to double in the next 50 years, many experts think we are on the edge of a videspread water crisis.
But that doesn't have to be the outcome. Water shortages do not have to trouble the vorld — if we start valuing water more than we have in the past. Just as we began to ippreciate petroleum more after the 1970s oil crises, today we must start looking at water rom a fresh economic perspective. We can no longer afford to consider water a virtually free esource of which we can use as much as we like in any way we want.
Instead, for all uses except the domestic demand of the poor, governments should price vater to reflect its actual value. This means charging a fee for the water itself as well as for he supply costs.
Governments should also protect this resource by providing water in more economically ind environmentally sound ways. For example, often the cheapest way to provide irrigation ?£-•%£.) water in the dry tropics is through small-scale projects, such as gathering rainfall in iepressions (Wit) and pumping it to nearby cropland.
No matter what steps governments take to provide water more efficiently, they must :hange their institutional and legal approaches to water use. Rather than spread control imong hundreds or even thousands of local, regional, and national agencies that watch 'arious aspects of water use, countries should set up central authorities to coordinate water lolicy.
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