Introduction to Drinking Water Management - Global Drinking Water Management and Conservation - page 3

argument is based on the minimal libertarian grounds on which economic theory
relies; it mandates state action to or ameliorate a violation of property

rights, such as a misuse of public property to the disadvantage of current and future
generations (Dore 1998 ). Since economic theory assumes the need for property
rights and mechanisms to enforce those rights, a minimal

“ correct ”

”
of the sort proposed by Nozick ( 1974 ), may be assumed in standard neoclassical
economic theory. The so-called Coasian approach of

“ night watchman state,

to deal
with externalities (Coase 1960 ) is a legalistic accretion into economics, made
respectable when Ronald Coase was awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize (in
memory of Nobel) in 1991. This bilateral Coasian negotiation is not possible when
the injured part is

“ let-them-negotiate ”

is
not applicable. In contrast to Coase, strict economic theory has a legitimate set of
tools for rectifying negative externalities, from corrective taxes to controls. But
what economic theory is powerless to do is to provide the political will to enforce a
“

“ society ” or future generations and hence the Coase “ theorem ”

intervention or solution.
Indeed we could go further: the developments in the new public economics that
arose after the seminal contributions of Professor Sir James Mirrlees in the early
1970s and what has followed since, show that the instruments that were previously
thought to be economically

socially correct ”

“ ”

(like quantity controls, quotas, forced
savings plans, prohibitions, etc.) can be seen as social

illegitimate

“ ”

necessitated
and indeed justified in an economy that is already distorted by a whole lot of
nonlinearities situating it far away from a hypothetical competitive equilibrium (see
more on this in Chap. 5 ).
I conclude that there is absolutely no reason why an economist, armed with such
a robust body of thought and conceiving economics to be a social and moral science
that is dedicated to the betterment of social life, might not legitimately write about
water resources and drinking water management. In fact it is only with such a social
perspective that the

improvements,

findings of the sciences of hydrology, limnology, epidemiology
and bio-eco-system functioning can be utilized for the preservation of the biome in
this anthropocene age, an age characterized by the adverse and negative impacts of
human activity. Hence, no further justi

cation for writing this topic is necessary;
very few scientists and even economists would be surprised that a whole array of
economic concepts and econometric and statistical tools can be used to carry out a
concerted critique of current management and social policy with the objective of
improving current policy and practice. Carrying out such a critique is one of the
objectives of this topic as well as a companion topic, which is focused on a critical
appraisal of water policy in Canada.

1.2 Water in a Global Context

Between 2009 and 2050, the world population is expected to increase from 6.8 to
9.1 billion (UN-DESA 2009 ). At the same time, urban populations are projected to
increase by 2.9 billion, from 3.4 billion in 2009 to 6.3 billion total in 2050. So most