文档介绍：Agriculture, Biosecurity, Nutrition
and Consumer Protection Department
Food and anization
of the United Nations
What's water worth?
Purely economic valuation of water often overlooks two important
dimensions: environmental values, such as the role of water in maintaining
ecosystems, and social values - such as growing food to eat
Of all the sectors that use freshwater, agriculture
- which claims 70% of global withdrawals from
natural sources - shows the lowest overall
economic return. That fact has led some
proponents of water valuation to champion
unregulated "water markets" which, by treating
it as an modity, redirect water
from low-value to high-value uses - typically
from irrigated agriculture to higher value
horticulture and from rural areas in general to
the industrial and urban sectors. The reasoning
is that, since demand outstrips supply when
water is treated as a free good, the market will
"bring supply and demand into balance" and, in
some cases, mitigate the environmentally
detrimental effects of overexploitation.
-related goods and services represent and
A "triple bottom line". But a new report from supporting them in reconciling their water
FAO says indiscriminate use of the economic demands."
approach risks overemphasizing "ary In Cambodia, for example, a survey in the
expressions of value" at the expe