Water for the City

This chapter describes the history and current state of water supply development and the water quality issues that Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China have needed to address. It identifies the efforts to undertake long distance imported water transfers and their environmental impacts; water quality problems from surface and groundwater sources, and water management issues, including a discussion of water privatization efforts and increased bottled water sales. It analyzes different river systems and watershed basins and various dependencies on non-local sources, such as Hong Kong’s dependence on water from Guangdong waters, Los Angeles on water from Northern California and the Colorado River, and China’s coastal regions and regions in the north on various transfers from where water is more plentiful to where it is scarce. It also looks at the water quality-water supply relationship and how polluted sources have led to a loss of supply.