This document was prepared as a supplement to the Asian Water Development Outlook 2016. It provides background information and explanatory notes on the approach taken, assumptions made, and data used. The methodology itself has been developed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in cooperation with reputed scientific institutes who have co-authored the individual reports for each of the five key dimensions of water security. These five reports are integrated into this methodology report. This study was supported by ADB's Water Financing Partnership Facility.

The Asian Water Development Outlook (AWDO) 2020 assesses national water security across Asia and the Pacific, focusing on five key dimensions: rural, economic, urban, environmental, and water-related disaster. Despite considerable achievements in Asia and the Pacific since the AWDO 2013 edition, 1.5 billion people in rural areas and 0.6 billion in urban areas still lack adequate water supply and sanitation. Sound water management and access to reliable service delivery remain vital to inclusive economic growth and social well-being, especially after the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This edition includes two new sections highlighting the importance of finance and governance to water security as well as case studies demonstrating how the AWDO has influenced policy development in four countries.

While Asia’s growth record in recent decades is remarkable, it has been marred by rising inequalities. This book looks at recent trends of income and non-income inequalities in developing Asian countries, discusses their underlying driving forces, and examines key policy issues that need to be addressed to ensure that the benefits of growth will be more equitably shared in Asia. The book also presents a set of country studies that provide rich information on growth, poverty and inequality dynamics and the policy challenges that arise in marching toward inclusive growth.

The global attention in recent years has focused primarily on water quantity and allocation issues. Water quality has received significantly less attention than water quantity. Commendable progress has been made by the developed world to control point sources of pollution, but commensurate progress in reducing non-point sources has not been made. In the third world countries both point and non-point sources of pollution are becoming increasingly a serious concern. Already, nearly all water bodies in such countries near and around urban centres have been severely polluted, with very high health and environmental costs. The book assesses the current status of water quality management in both developed and developing worlds, as well as analysing the effectiveness of economic instruments and legal and institutional frameworks to control water contamination. It outlines the importance of building up social and political awareness to reverse the trend of continuing water quality deterioration, which is likely to be a most challenging task in the coming years. This book was published as a special issue of International Journal of Water Resources Development.

There is a vast literature for and against privatizing public services. Those who are against privatization are often confronted with the objection that they present no alternative. This book takes up that challenge by establishing theoretical models for what does (and does not) constitute an alternative to privatization, and what might make them ‘successful’, backed up by a comprehensive set of empirical data on public services initiatives in over 40 countries. This is the first such global survey of its kind, providing a rigorous and robust platform for evaluating different alternatives and allowing for comparisons across regions and sectors. The book helps to conceptualize and evaluate what has become an important and widespread movement for better public services in the global South. The contributors explore historical, existing and proposed non-commercialized alternatives for primary health, water/sanitation and electricity. The objectives of the research have been to develop conceptual and methodological frameworks for identifying and analyzing alternatives to privatization, and testing these models against actually existing alternatives on the ground in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Information of this type is urgently required for practitioners and analysts, both of whom are seeking reliable knowledge on what kind of public models work, how transferable they are from one place to another and what their main strengths and weaknesses are.

Transition to Journals From Volume 19, the Yearbook of International Environmental Law will be available as online only, print only, or combined print and online subscriptions from Oxford Journals. The Yearbook of International Environmental Law archive is available immediately from January 2011. Customers wishing to take out a subscription can do so by clicking through to the yearbook's journal page: http://yielaw.oxfordjournals.org/ The Yearbook of International Environmental Law will benefit from a number of additional features made possible by online publication: Publish ahead of print - Articles will appear online throughout the year, granting subscribers immediate access to the latest developments in both HTML and PDF formats, without needing to wait for the print volume Email alerts - Anyone can sign up to receive Yearbook of International Environmental Law content alerts - both of the annual volume and of content published throughout the year Searchable archive - The entire archive back to 1996 will be made available to Yearbook of International Environmental Law subscribers The Yearbook of International Environmental Law has established itself as a vital source of information and analysis in an increasingly important legal field. The contributors for this volume are drawn from leading figures around the world who, together with the expert team of editors, have created the best source of information on world-wide events in this field. The article section contains high quality essays on topical subjects and the year-in-review section offers a round-up of legal developments in every part of the world. The third section of the Yearbook contains extenstive reviews of recently published books in the area.