The price of dirty water : pollution costs in the Sebou Basin
Sadoff, Claudia W.
This report is part of a series of assessments being undertaken on the environmental situation of a major watershed in Morocco, the Sebou River Basin. The report attempts to quantify the cost of pollution in this basin, defined as the direct economic impact of pollution. Identified here are the economic costs, often hidden, of inaction in environmental management. Water is a critical economic variable that also affects the well-being of the country's human capital. Preservation of water quality and improvement of sanitary conditions among the population are expected to play a crucial role in a country's development. Accepting or rejecting certain levels of water pollution by deferring mitigation investments to the future rather than implementing them in the present is, however, a matter of economics and social acceptance. The tight budgetary conditions in most countries, and the conflicting demands on available fiscal resources demand that public spending and policy decisions have a convincing economic justification. This report proposes a methodology to establish the extent to which governments can afford a course of inaction in preserving the environment. It provides a basic yet sometimes difficult assessment of the economic value of inaction so that appropriate policy decisions can be made.
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