Introduction

Water shares a number of characteristics with other natural resources. Yet, not all resources share water’s significance as the basis for all forms of life. Though water is abundant globally, albeit unevenly distributed in time and space, it is becoming scarcer in two senses. First, the global population is increasing rapidly, mostly in developing regions of the world, and second, the quality of the available fresh water is deteriorating with increased pollution from human activities. As pointed out by Cosgrove and Rijsberman (2000) , the crisis will become more serious under a business as usual scenario and problems of water shortages and pollution will intensify unless effective and concerted actions are taken.