Abstract
Hydrologists expect the demand for water will continue to increase with the world’s growing population. As a result, some have predicted that by the year 2025, as many as 3.5 billion people will be living in water stressed or water scarce countries, compared to 500 million people in 2002. Water scarcity is also exacerbated as peoples’ lifestyles become more industrialized and thus more consumptive on a per capita basis. The aim of this paper is to concentrate on one aspect of the complex issue of water exports, namely, the feasibility and practicality of a water export business and its various impacts. The issue of water exports will be put in perspective, because if such exports are not attractive from a business point of view, it is unlikely that such exports will ever take place. The term water exports will be used in this paper to refer to bulk transfers of water from one location to another using tankers or water bags. This kind of transfer is generally considered a type of medium scale export, as opposed to sales of bottled water (small scale) and watershed diversions (large-scale).
Comments
Abstracts of presentations given on Tuesday, 12 July 2005 in session 12 of the UCOWR conference.