Description: 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.
Brief description: Ariel Dinar is Distinguished Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy at the School of Public Policy, University of California, Riverside. He served as lead economist on water and climate change for the World Bank. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal Water Economics and Policy. He is an International Fellow of the Center for Agricultural Economic Research of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Fulbright Senior Specialist, and a 2015 Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
Review Quotes: 'A comprehensive, integrated approach for evaluating and improving the management of scarce water resources across the globe. The fundamental principles of economics, critical role of institutions, and legal norms restricting water allocation policies are insightfully represented. I am completely persuaded by the authors' modular structure of the advanced framework and its implications for the future of water resource management challenges.' Gordon Rausser, University of California, Berkeley