Water Markets and Water Security

Abstract

Water has both an economic and a human security aspect to it, whereby the term water security can entail both. This work focusses on water security as "the availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks to people, environments and economies" (Grey & Sadoff, 2007, pp. 547-548). Therefore, an analysis of the term water security, water markets, and the value of water itself will be conducted, after which a case study water market system of the Murray Darling Basin in South Eastern Australia, using the ABCDE+F framework of Chris Perry, will be used to help answer the question: How can water markets help increase water security for people, environments and possibly economies?