Water has historically played a strong role in the economic and cultural development of many great civilizations. More than ever before this continues to be the case in the twenty-first century as we witness the critical nature of water resources in developed and developing nations alike. What is unique about water in this time, however, is the disparate influence that it respectively plays in industrialized nations of North America and Western Europe, and other transitional economies found in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. While developed nations are characterized by impressive stocks of large scale water infrastructure, the reverse is true for developing nations where there are significant shortcomings in the physical capital required for water management. This is clearly exemplified by the divergence in reservoir storage per capita between wealthy and poorer countries. While North America leads per capita storage at 5,961 cubic meters, Ethiopia’s storage capacity is less than one percent (0.63%) of this at only 38 cubic meters. Download Report (2007) (15 pages; 125KB PDF)
