Water demand management

This paper looks at a new approach to the efficient and cost-effective use of water, water demand management (WDM), which relies on socio-economic techniques like economic analysis, establishment of incentives and disincentives, water conservation technologies, reduction of unaccounted for water, re-use of treated wastewater, public education, and water equity rights modification to modify water demand patterns and even to lower the demands themselves. The paper presents some general concepts of WDM and discusses the problem of unaccounted for water in developing countries. A series of case studies from Israel and from large urban centres in Singapore, China, Korea and Malaysia are used to analyse the effectiveness of WDM on water conservation. The paper concludes that if fully pursued and implemented, demand management could: reduce water demands by 30-50 per cent, reduce capital requirements for expansion of water supply, reduce the generation of pollutants, enhance the development of new energy efficient technologies, promote financially sustainable water systems, expand the coverage of available water development funds and help to meet the water needs of irrigation and industrial users and of a growing world population.