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Water and Globalization

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Water and Human Societies

Abstract

The chapter on water and globalization overlaps earlier chapters, particularly water and equity and water and security. With a robust global market, water, like so many other resources, has been commodified; even to the point where it is traded on the Australian Stock Market. Yet objections from scholars and activists contend that water has intrinsic value and should be categorized as a market good, a commodity. But booming sales in bottled water and the trade of water in countries, such as Peru, to support agribusiness, facilitate water’s identity as a market good. The global economy, however, has also raised awareness of what is termed “virtual water.” Now when a country determines its water use and subsequent water independence, virtual water is part of the measurement.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Erik Gawel and Kristina Bernsen, “Globalization of Water: The Case for Global Water Governance,” Nature and Culture 6:3 (Winter, 2011), 206.

  2. 2.

    Ibid.

  3. 3.

    Brian Eyler, Last Days of the Mighty Mekong (Zed, 2019), 14.

  4. 4.

    Henry Petroski, Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering (Knopf, 2004).

  5. 5.

    Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

  6. 6.

    Daniel Stoll, “The Effects of Climate Change on Food and Water Security,” Global Future of the Environment (Georgetown University, September 12, 2016) https://globalfutures.georgetown.edu/responses/the-effects-of-climate-change-on-food-and-water-security.

  7. 7.

    Lou Del Bello, “The Slum Residents Trying to Prevent a Water Crisis,” BBC Future (October 11, 2018) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181011-how-to-solve-delhis-water-crisis.

  8. 8.

    “Food and Water Watch,” https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/.

  9. 9.

    Brahma Chellany, Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 160.

  10. 10.

    Emily Ingebretson, “A Thirsty World: How Land Grabs are Leaving Ethiopia in the Dust,” wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water 4:1 (October 10, 2017), 95.

  11. 11.

    Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, “Water and the Environment” at https://www.agriculture.gov.au/water/markets/history.

  12. 12.

    Kath Sullivan, “Water Trading’s “Unintended” Consequences Across Australia’s Southern Murray-Darling Basin,” ABC Rural, at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-13/water-trade-in-murray-darling-basin-has-unintended-consequences/11291450

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Correspondence to David A. Pietz .

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Pietz, D.A., Zeisler-Vralsted, D. (2021). Water and Globalization. In: Water and Human Societies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67692-6_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67692-6_8

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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