This book presents a valuable new tool for water management water resource accounting which significantly advances the economic analysis of water. Water resource accounts integrate detailed information about water supply and use with national income accounts to show the economic use of water, costs and tariffs paid, and the economic value of water for different economic uses. Based on the UN s handbook for environmental accounting, this book describes the implementation and policy application of water accounts in three African countries Botswana, Namibia and South Africa and discusses how they have been used by water managers. The book compares water use across the three countries, explaining the differences in water resources and water policy. In addition to the comprehensive outline of physical and monetary water accounts for each country, the authors provide an extensive discussion of water valuation as well as addressing a number of issues of regional importance, including water accounting for an international river basin and the impact of trade on each country s water use. By demonstrating the usefulness of water resource accounts, this book makes a major contribution to the literature on water economics and management, sustainable development, and to the development of environmental accounting in general. The Economics of Water Management in Southern Africa will appeal to a wide readership including: environmental and development economists NGOs concerned with sustainable development environmental advocacy groups professionals (economists and environmentalists) working in Africa on water and sustainable development issues water professionals national accounts experts and statisticians.

One of the early set of reforms that South Africa embarked on after emerging from apartheid was in the water sector, following a remarkable, consultative process. The policy and legal reforms were comprehensive and covered almost all aspects of water management including revolutionary changes in defining and allocating rights to water, radical reforms in water management and supply institutions, the introduction of the protection of environmental flows, and major shifts in charging for water use and in the provision of free basic water. Over ten years of implementation of these policy and legislative changes mean that valu­able lessons have already been learned and useful experiences gained in the challenge of effective water resources management and water services provision in a middle income country.

Population growth and rising living standards, on the one hand, and changing climate, on the other hand, have exacerbated water scarcity worldwide. To address this problem, policymakers need to take a wide view of the water economy – a complex structure involving environmental, social, economic, legal, and institutional aspects. A coherent water policy must look at the water economy as a whole and apply a comprehensive approach to policy interventions. Written by two of the world's leading scholars on economics of water, this is the first graduate-level textbook on the topic. The book discusses water resource management within a comprehensive framework that integrates the different, yet highly entwined, elements of a water economy. It follows the steps needed to develop a well-designed set of policies based on detailed analyses of intervention measures, using multi-sectoral and economy-wide examples from a variety of locations and situations around the world.

Analyses of environmental economics and case studies that illustrate the importance of environmental management provide an expert perspective on the integration of economic theories and environmental challenges in this treatise on implementing policies that support sustainable development.

Water, already a scarce resource, is treated as though it were plentiful and free. The task of supplying enough water of the required quality to growing populations is straining authorities and governments to the limit as the economic and environmental costs of new supply sources escalate and wasteful supply, delivery and consumption systems persist. Managing Water as an Economic Resource argues that the root of the crisis is the failure of suppliers and consumers to treat water as a scarce commodity with an economic value. James Winpenny evaluates policies for the improved management of existing demand, and draws on case studies from different countries as he discusses how policies could be implemented to treat water as an economic good conferring major economic, financial and environmental benefits.