Water quality protection is one example of a global shift to local natural resource management.
There is growing concern about the protection and supply of drinking water to citizens. Governments in
many parts of the world suffer from a conundrum when it comes to water. They are mandated to maintain
legitimacy through the provision of safe drinking water to their citizens. Yet, years of experience has
shown that protection of water quality is not best carried out at the central level—except in the cases of
where large water bodies have been diverted to provide water resources. Even in these cases (southern
California and Israel are examples), the delivery of water over vast distances through centralized deliverysystems is eventually wrought with political problems. For instance, the residents of the inland West and
environmentalists are demanding that the Owens Lake, the water from which has composed a major
component of the Los Angeles drinking supply, be at least partially refilled to mitigate negative
environmental consequences to air quality (Braxton 2000). In Israel, the damming of the Jordan River at
the base of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias) is a major source of conflict, as Palestinians and Jordan
demand rights to that water--which is the major contributor of Israel’s “National Water Carrier” (see Wolf
1999.)