Water security is generally agreed as the availability of water of sufficient quantity and quality to ensure human and ecosystem needs combined with an acceptable level of risk to humans, ecosystems and economies (Global Water Partnership 2000, Grey and Sadoff 2007, Cook and Bakker 2012). In spite of the explicit recognition of ecosystem needs within the agreed definitions and considerable discussion among academics about ways in which water security is measured holistically (Falkenmark et al. 2007, Lautze and Manthrithilake 2012, Nichols and Dyer 2013), in practise for most developed countries the focus of water security measures has been the provision of water to meet human and economic needs.
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