The Price and Value of Water: An Economic Review

Abstract

This review examines key economic concepts in relation to the price and value of water for the supply and demand of household water. It responds to a series of questions about water and how it is used. These include (1) Why water is (or is not) priced and valued (or not)?; (2) What are the key economic concepts for pricing water?; (3) How is water priced and how are water supply assets valued for full cost recovery?; (4) Who bears the costs and enjoys the benefits of water use?; and (5) When is the price of water expected to change? Examples are provided to demonstrate the universality of the economic concepts while highlighting how their application must be bespoke and account for different socio-economic contexts and bio-physical conditions where water is supplied and demanded. Impact statementWe demonstrate how key economic concepts have the potential, if effectively applied, to be transformational in relation to the who, what, where and when of how water is used globally. This opportunity arises because much of the world suffers from either too much (flooding), too little (hydrological droughts) or too dirty water that shortens and diminishes the quality of life of billions of people and degrades environments. Business as usual for water must change, given the projected increase in the world's population of about 2.5 billion over the coming decades, cascading risks from climate change with its myriad of interactions with water, rising global water use, declining aquifers in large food-producing regions, degrading riparian environment due to overextraction, and water pollution. Appropriately pricing and, separately, valuing water for economic efficiency and for more equitable and just outcomes, along with responses to longstanding water governance failures, offer potentially very large global benefits and would support the delivery of SDG 6, 'water for all'. '…(s)upplies and demands for water are not absolutely determined by natural forces and engineering requirements but rather are to be measured in terms of the economic balance of all needs and resources of the community…Where water is scarce and expensive (in terms of other resources that must be sacrificed to make more water available), it becomes justifiable to construct elaborate facilitiesto minimize intake, to recirculate quantities withdrawn, and to avoid uses that are consumptive'.

Fundamentals and Applications of Surface Wetting

“…Accomplishing the declared sustainable development goals by 2030 necessitates an immediate and comprehensive global response. ,, Nevertheless, the global community still lags significantly in achieving its clean water objectives. The Earth’s atmosphere holds a substantial amount of fresh water, ∼12 900 km 3 , which can be found in either liquid (fog droplets) or in the gaseous phase .…”

“…Energy harvesting and storage technologies are vital to meet the ever-increasing global energy demand while reducing our carbon footprint, enabling us to harness renewable sources, store energy for later use, and power our lives sustainably. , Managing water, our planet’s precious resource, is equally crucial. Sustainable water management safeguards our ecosystems and ensures a clean and reliable water supply for a growing population. − Meanwhile, lab-on-a-chip diagnostics revolutionize healthcare by providing fast, precise, low-cost, and portable disease detection and monitoring tools. , Collectively, these innovations represent a sustainable future where we conserve resources, improve healthcare access, and power our world responsibly, embracing a greener and healthier tomorrow. Surface wettability serves as a linchpin in these technologies, enabling the manipulation of fluids by varying the way fluids interact with a surface.…”

Foaming enables material-efficient bioplastic products with minimal persistence

“…To date, no exchange constant exists for the social cost of water, though the need to determine such a number has been proposed 35 . Nonetheless, water is a valuable natural resource 36,37 ; thus, reducing its usage as much as possible can benefit society.…”

Introducing Cambridge Prisms Water: Solutions for managing an essential resource and critical hazard

“…Contributions currently available include several reviews: from the operational resilience of the water sector to three major hazardssea-level rise, earthquake and cyber-attack (Sinha et al, 2023) to water as a key enabler of water-land-energy nexus interactions in which Sušnik et al (2023) show the consequences of "water going wrong" and call for more systems thinking, especially in policy and decision-making. In addition, Grafton et al (2023) provide an economic review of the price and value of water, whereas Bartholomeus et al (2023) report from the Netherlands on how water is being managed across the flood-drought spectrum. Rajapakse et al (2023) present progress towards attaining targets of SDG 6 globally, and Shah (2023) discusses the need to move away from siloed thinking with respect to policymaking in the water, energy, food and agriculture fields by embracing "pragmatic but principled" solutions.…”