C2 Reading Test – Political Economy of Water Scarcity
Free C2 Reading passage on water rights and pricing. Evaluate multi-cause arguments, policy tools, and bias in data framing.
Read the passage and decide if each statement is True (T) or False (F).
Water scarcity is not only a hydrological fact; it is a political-economic arrangement that decides whose taps run when rivers run low. In many regions, irrigation receives priority allocations set decades ago, while fast-growing cities negotiate emergency transfers at premium prices. Subsidized farm electricity can make pumping appear “free,” shifting costs to aquifers and future taxpayers. Meanwhile, utilities are judged on keeping tariffs low rather than losses low, so leaky networks persist because under-pricing starves maintenance.
Price reforms are often proposed as rational corrections, yet prices signal power as much as scarcity. When metering expands without social safeguards, poor households may reduce essential use while large consumers hire lawyers and drill deeper wells. Smart design can temper this: rising block tariffs protect basic needs; lifeline volumes are cross-subsidized; and non-revenue water is cut before retail prices climb. But governance capacity is the constraint—collecting data, enforcing caps, and auditing exemptions require institutions that many districts lack.
Agriculture sits at the center of trade-offs. Shifting from flood to drip irrigation saves water on-farm, but if saved water is simply re-allocated to new acreage (“rebound”), basin consumption hardly falls. Crop switching toward less thirsty varieties helps, yet politics intrudes when subsidies or export targets reward the opposite. Cities, for their part, can diversify through reuse, demand management, and desalination. Reuse and efficiency are cheapest per unit, but desalination can buy drought insurance—reliable but energy-intensive—raising questions about decarbonization and who pays.
Transboundary basins add a sovereignty layer: upstream dams promise flexibility for one country and volatility for its neighbors. Treaties that focus solely on annual volumes can fail under climate variability; rules that share both water and risk—coordinated storage, drought clauses, data transparency—travel better. Ultimately, scarcity governance is judged not by average supply but by how a system absorbs shocks without pushing the poorest to the cliff’s edge.
The passage argues that water scarcity outcomes are shaped by political and economic choices, not just hydrology.
Low urban tariffs always lead to lower leakage because utilities earn less profit.
Expanding metering without safeguards can cause poorer households to cut essential use.
Rising block tariffs and lifeline volumes are presented as tools to protect basic needs.
The text claims governance capacity (data, enforcement, audits) is usually abundant in water-stressed districts.
On-farm efficiency like drip irrigation automatically reduces basin-level consumption.
Desalination is described as reliable but energy-intensive, raising decarbonization concerns.
According to the passage, reuse and demand management are typically cheaper per unit than desalination.
Treaties that share annual volumes only are said to be perfectly robust under climate variability.
The author suggests that equitable scarcity governance should absorb shocks without pushing the poorest into crisis.