Economic aspects of environmental management water resources: Charges for usage

This book discusses the environmental management of water resources, analysing the economic aspects related to the management of water quantity and quality. It investigates the creation of a water rights market. Methods for valuing water and their applications are presented. It researches the experience of charging for water use in Brazil and other countries, such as France, England, and Germany, among others. According to the established water resource management in the country, the objectives of charging should be to finance water resource management and reduce negative externalities. However, it is argued that water tariff charging stems from four motivations: financial, economic, equity, and income distribution, influencing the choice of tariff reference to be adopted. It is concluded that the economic valuation of water resources establishes a mandatory stepping stone for the optimisation of environmental resource management. However, some objections are raised, such as the difficulty of valuing intangible environmental assets, the creation of hypothetical markets, their sustainable perspective, and the limited capacity to replace natural capital.