Water as a Social Good

Social policy is outstanding in its failure to adequately account for the true social values of water. Many social policies, especially those for consumptive water use, remain within a fundamentalist economic paradigm, sometimes with environmental concessions. The dominance of water as an economic good, as a commodity, overshadows the wider but poorly articulated and hence little recognised community values for water. Commodification of water recognises price, markets, growth, profit, efficiency, costs of production and redistribution. These factors may have substantial conflicts with community values for water which incorporate its spiritual, aesthetic and environmental dimensions, such as water for religious and recreational needs and for biodiversity. Water has value as an economic resource; it also has value as a cultural and environmental resource. The “imbalance” between these values has significant import for the stability and public health of our 21st century community. The paradigms for economic growth and for preserving the quality of natural resources capital, especially water, are more often than not, on collision course. Evaluations of present and future “equity”, that is, who gets water and the primacy of water having value higher than its dollar value, are discussed with examples drawn from water allocation, environmental water values and environmental impact assessment of toxic chemicals in water and biotic resources. Key water futures discussed show complexity and contrast and include: a need for increasing water security; concerted public questioning of and involvement in water infrastructure investment decisions; loss of community water access; spiritual impoverishment in the new “nature”; a precarious water ethic; more litigation; public health concerns with pesticides and herbicides; the importance of community experience; positivist revisionism by governments in relation to the realities of destabilising water resources; and the rising importance of regional identity in ownership and protection of water.