We're 60% water. After air, water is next on our list of ingredients that we'll die without. It demands our highest priority!
Given water's importance how do we make good waterresoucing and usage decisions?
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cost-Benefit Analysis is the standard for city governments in making major project decisions. We'll not all agree on priorities, but in general we'll enjoy a better outcome if we've evaluated (quantitatively) all the elements and weighed them out.
Assigning Values
This is a difficult piece...whereas capital and operating expenses are data-driven, placing values on community and environmental impacts vary by community and the setting. Human interaction is important in this work, as is valuing people/groups equally.
Summing it Up
Stacking up all the costs and the benefits, and then dividing costs/benefits, gives us the cost-benefit ratio for our comparison. This will never be perfect, never satisfy all, but its value is in moving from feelings/biases into a process for decision-making.
"I can't drink money"
young girl speaking out on water resourcing to Corpus Christi Council