(The Basis of Civilization – Water Science? – Proceedings of the UNESCO/IAHS/IWHA Symposium held in Rome, December 2003 – IAHS Publication 286, pp. 291–299).
Technological change and population growth already stress legal regimes for managing water. Significant climate change complicates the picture. Climate change can be managed without disasters through major reforms to water law at the local, national, and international levels. Locally and nationally, water must be treated as public property, and not as common or private property. Internationally, water must be managed at the drainage basin level rather than within national boundaries largely drawn without reference to rational water management. The public nature of water precludes markets as a management tool.
Climate change, Customary international law, Economic incentives, Equitable utilization, Privatization, Property in water, Regulated riparianism, Water bank, Water law, Water markets
