Print Email Facebook Twitter Values of water Title Values of water Author Doorn, N. Dicke, W.M. Faculty Technology, Policy and Management Department Values and Technology Date 2012-12-31 Abstract Water is essential for human life. However, due to its scarcity, the management of water is a topic of great concern. Inadequate management may lead to famines, food insecurity, ecological destruction, and resource-based conflicts, and eventually to human suffering and the loss of millions of human lives. Whereas some official organizations speak of a water crisis, others argue that there is sufficient water but that the water sector needs to be reformed to avoid a water crisis in the future. Whether or not one uses the term “water crisis,” the numbers are not encouraging. In 2010, more than one out of six people (0.7 billion people) lacked access to safe drinking water, and more than two out of six (2.6 billion people) lacked adequate sanitation. Almost 2 million people die every year from water borne diseases, most notably diarrhea. There are no official numbers on resource-based conflicts, but fact is that there are over 260 river basins shared by two or more countries, which may provide a source of (regional) instability or conflicts when strong institutions and agreements are missing. In the light of climate change, the impact of the global water crisis is expected to increase in the coming decades. Traditionally, water management has been seen as primarily a technical issue, belonging to the field of engineers and hydrologists. However, it is increasingly recognized that an adequate management of water requires that the institutional constraints and juridical context be taken into account. Both in academia and policy circles, the attention has therefore shifted from water management towards water governance, requiring the combined and coordinated effort of both technical (engineers, hydrologists) and nontechnical experts (lawyers, economists, political and social scientists). With the shift from water management to water governance, the principle of equitable utilization has emerged in the literature as an important principle for allocation. However, notwithstanding recurrent pleas to include issues of “equity” and “social justice” in the governance of water, a systematic reflection on the different values pertaining to water is lacking. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:be042906-f085-4dae-a836-ceb0262de240 Publisher Baltzer Science Publishers ISSN 2211-0024 Source Water Governance 2 (2), 2012 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2012 Baltzer Science Publishers Files PDF 287656.pdf 233.44 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:be042906-f085-4dae-a836-ceb0262de240/datastream/OBJ/view