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-- a note from _kt75 ( updated : 2012-11-12 ) The most essential good, water, comes under economic pressure. A number of reports document sharply rising prices for water among others in the USA, e.g. [ 1 ]- [ 4 ], Europe, e.g. [ 5 ]-[ 7 ] and Asia/Australia, e.g. [ 8 ] - [ 10 ] etc. Accordingly, for the USA an increase between 5-15% is prognosticated. Israel, with a reported increase in water consumption by 6% in 2011 [ 11 ] is about to raise water rates by about 4% in 2013 [ 12 ] . In Europe the price per m3 of water will raise up to 5% [ 5 ], [ 7 ], [ 13 ]. The reasons for the increasing water prices are diverse. Some are of technical nature (outdated infrastructure, installation of new equipment), some are of social nature (pension costs for water workers). However, the price of water is increasingly liable to some artificial manipulation, i.e. speculation [ 1 ], [ 2 ]. It seems to be rather questionable and actually critical (in particular from a social

-- a note from _kt75 Hydro power is considered one of the promising sustainable (because renewable) ener g y sources able to fa cilitate and guarantee a safe energy turnaround away from fossil energy carriers. Accordingly, hydro power industry is on the rise a nd a multitude of construction projects are either in the planning stage , in progress or already finished. However, as in any other case in ad dition to the te chnical dimension al so hydr o power has a n e nvironmental , an economic and a geo-p olitical d imen sion which are cl osely interlinked [ 1 ]. Due to the ongoing pronounced and rather uni -directional prom otion of al ternative/renewable en ergy car riers (like hydro power ) critical tra de-offs and ass oci ated conflicts (whatever kind of) can create rat her drastic situations and the actually sustainable nature of renewable energy carr iers gets lost. In particular politically unstable, mainly developing regions are concerned [ 2 ] - [ 5 ] . Here, bu

-- a note from kt75 The former b r iefings have been re-released as _ kt75 | re flection 1/2012 : Quick Survey on Sustainability of Beverage Cans. > download here . _ kt75 | relfection 2/2012: Water Strategies and Implications in China. > download here . Further p ublications can be found here . In cas e of download pr o blems request your free copy of the re flections from kt 75@gmx.ch . 

-- a note from kt75 The third issue of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q03/2012 is released. Previous releases of the Notes are available from: http://swm-group.blogspot.ch/p/kt75-mirror-downloads.html . In case of problems request your free copy of the Notes directly from: kt75@gmx.ch kt75 home:  http://kt-75.blogspot.ch/