Search

L'eau est un bien de première nécessité, c'est pour cette raison que la population doit y avoir accès et, de fait, que ce bien doit être acheminé et réparti dans les nombreux foyers. Mais, à notre époque, l'eau semble avoir été absorbée dans la société de consommation comme une marchandise. Le compteur d’eau, qui institue l’abonné-consommateur, fait ainsi l’objet de débats vifs et controversés. Quels sont les impacts sociaux de cet outil ? Comment est‑il utilisé dans différents pays ?

This paper shows that the evolution of French water governance since the 1960s is globally consistent with the OECD Principles on Water Governance. It covers simultaneously what concerns resources, services and eventually policies that bridge both types, per groups of governance principles. The paper illustrates that, beyond this overall positive assessment, a lot of shortcomings and weaknesses and therefore of potential improvements can be identified. It proposes a preliminary reflection about the impact of governance changes and about indicators needed to measure these impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before generalising water metering and billing at the apartment level for consumer equity reasons, and alleviating the burden of water bills for poor families through increasing block tariffs (IBTs), Paris Council asked for some expert advice. The pros and cons of two separate issues - IBTs efficiency and justice; and individual household metering - were mixed. Our research first summarises various studies of the redistributive effects of tariff changes, first from flat rates to metering, and then from uniform prices to IBTs. We address the particular case of multifamily housing, where it is possible to retain collective billing, while relying on sub-metering to allocate the bill. The limitations of classical econometric surveys on large samples (in terms of understanding households' strategies with tap water) support the need for supplementary detailed sociological surveys at neighbourhood or building levels, if only to check the unexpected redistributive effects of tariff changes in practice. We review the specific French situation, peculiarly in Paris, to show that individual apartment billing is more costly and tends to have regressive effects. Like other cities in France, Paris abandoned the implementation of Art. 93 of the 2000 law, which encouraged individual billing; and we explain why. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An in-depth historical analysis of the development of water services in France, using the overall European experience as a background, illustrates that the centralisation vs. decentralisation issue is arguably more important than the public vs. private one, which is more openly discussed. In the end, despite the prominent role of large private utilities, water infrastructure is publicly held, while water billing is generalised, as on most of the European continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article contributes to a discussion on two global issues on water: water resources management, and water supply and sanitation. Focusing on Europe, it traces the legal roots of current systems in history: as a resource, water is considered as a common property, rather than a market good; while as a public service it is usually a commodity. Public water supply and sanitation technologies and engineering have developed under three main paradigms: quantitative and civil engineering; qualitative and chemical/sanitary engineering (both on the supply side); and the most recent one, environmental engineering and integrated management (on the demand side). The cost of public drinking water is due to rise sharply in view of the two-fold financial challenge of replacing an ageing infrastructure and keeping up with ever-rising environmental and sanitary quality standards. Who will pay? Government subsidies, or water users? The author suggests that apparent successes with privatisation may have relied heavily on hidden government subsidies and/or the healthy state of previously installed water infrastructure: past government subsidies are still felt for as long as the lifetime of the infrastructure. The article stresses the importance of public participation and decentralized local management of water and sanitation services. Informing and involving users in water management decisions is seen as an integral part of the ‘ethics’ side of the crucial three E's (economics, environment, ethics). The article strongly argues for municipal provision of water services, and hopes that lessons learnt and solutions found in the European experience may serve water services management efforts in other regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the periodical is presented in which the editors discuss the relation between water and public health.