Is it possible to buy a river? And a spring? And the right to rain? In some countries - yes. The modern world shows that what seems common and natural becomes a commodity, an object of struggle and exclusion. Let's look at how the privatization of water affects the lives of millions of people, who benefits from these arrangements, and who pays the highest price.
If the content hits a sensitive spot with the recipient, it stays with you. I was struck at such a place some time ago by a short column by Kateřina Vídenová included in the publication of the Catalan catalog for the Architecture Biennale 2025. In it, Vídenová writes that growing up in communist Czechoslovakia, she often heard the recurring urban legend that in the free, capitalist West, people even buy water. This short text provoked many questions in me - from the price per bottle of water at train stations and airports, to microplastics in water (recent studies have shown that bottled water contains much higher levels of microplastics and nanoplastics than previously estimated), to the global management and distribution practices of such a basic thing as drinking water.
This is how I got stuck down the rabbit hole associated with the commodification of the liquid, of which EFSA recommends a total daily intake of 2.0 liters for women and 2.5 liters for men.
There is a lot of talk these days about how water has ceased to be something taken for granted and shared, and has become a commodity on which to simply make money. This process has been going on for years, and has deep roots still dating back to colonial history, preying on social inequality and the belief that the market will regulate everything best on its own. However, research clearly shows that this approach leads nowhere.
a turnaround in water management
Toward the end of the 20th century, the idea that water should act like a product on the market - sold, priced, managed by companies that better "optimize" its distribution - was increasingly pushed. What this looked like in practice was that large corporations like Nestlé began pumping water from natural sources and selling it in plastic bottles, while billions of people had no access to drinkable tap water[1].
This was no accident, however, but a continuation of well-known mechanisms: once common pastures were appropriated, now water sources. In the colonies, the legal systems - British and Spanish - set the rules of access to rivers and wells according to the interests of the settlers, relegating to the margins both the right to water and local customs or spiritual relations with water. In South Africa, until the end of apartheid, most water went to white farmers, and the black population had to use what was left-often contaminated.
The National Water Act of 1956 was officially intended to improve and distribute justice, but in reality it unfortunately further privileged whites - diverting resources mainly to areas inhabited by them and to industry and large farms. At the same time, in Soweto, one of the largest black communities, almost 93% of homes had no running water until 1976. Farming by the people there was usually limited to small plots of land, where access to water was severely limited. Such an arrangement was no accident - it was part of a system that today is referred to as "water apartheid." Water, like land and civil rights, was written into the policy of segregation at the time.
Although decades have passed, many of these policies are still in place. In Australia, water has been formally recognized as an asset that can be traded. In 2004, the National Water Initiative introduced rules treating water as a tradable property right - something that can be bought, sold and transferred. It sounds neutral, but in practice, the voice of those for whom the river is not just a liquid, but also an ancestral, spiritual axis of the world, a memory of place, was again overlooked. In response, the idea of theStrategic Aboriginal Water Reserve (SAWR) was born - a portion of water resources allocated toaboriginal landowners in certain regions. It was intended to support the future economic development of communities. While it looked like a step toward justice, an analysis of parliamentary work and policy documents showed that legislation alone was not enough. The forces of the powerful were still at work - those who had power and access to legal knowledge knew how to take advantage of the system. And those who had been marginalized earlier were again left by the wayside. The law doesn't do justice if it isn't followed by real support and leveling the playing field.
More can more?
In 1981, under Pinochet, Chile introduced one of the most radical water privatization schemes in the world. A new law, the Water Code, turned water into a private resource that could be traded like a commodity: bought, sold, leased and even mortgaged. Water rights in Chile were granted for free, indefinitely, mainly to mining, agribusiness and forestry companies. Thus was born a market where water could be "hoarded" - often without real use, blocking access to others.
This system led to extreme concentration of resources. As a result, it is estimated that nearly half of rural communities today have no permanent access to water, as most rights are held by a few large players. Small family farms are struggling with years of drought, while at the same time they have no way to buy access to water, which has been reserved for large avocado exporters or... mining concerns. Some farmers are abandoning their crops, while others are using costly and inefficient solutions to simply survive. While large-scale plantations continue to irrigate their fields intensively, local communities have to count every liter of water delivered by barrel trucks.
In 2005, changes were made to the code: including fees for unused rights, restrictions on "stockpiling" resources and a requirement to take environmental issues into account. But these reforms have not reversed the main direction - the logic of the market still applies, and critics point out that it provides neither equality nor protection of ecosystems.
JUST SAVE!
Advocates of water retribution often argue that pricing helps reduce consumption. But experience in Cape Town during the 2015-2017 drought shows that this doesn't always work fairly. At the time, the city introduced progressive tariffs and set a daily limit of 50 liters per person - enough only for drinking, cooking, washing and flushing the toilet. Officially, it was about solidarity in the face of crisis. In reality, the restrictions were felt hardest by low-income people, who had to comply - often also experiencing hours-long interruptions in supply. Wealthier neighborhoods had other options: they invested in private wells, reservoirs and storage systems, and overconsumption was resolved with a mandate that was not an obstacle for many.
In 2018, Cape Town stood on the threshold of "Day Zero" - the moment when the city's taps would be turned off due to extreme shortages. Drastic measures averted disaster, but inequality remained prominent. Studies showed that the wealthiest 14% of households used more than half of the city's water - mostly for lawns, gardens and swimming pools. Meanwhile, the poorest had to function on minimal consumption, without alternatives or safeguards. Saving became another obligation imposed on those who had the least anyway.
In response, the city raised tariffs for the most resource-intensive users and began implementing consumption management systems in selected homes. But enforcing these solutions proved difficult, especially against those who could afford to avoid the restrictions. The Cape Town crisis has shown that in terms of access to water, the problem is not just the physical lack of water, but also how the responsibility for saving is distributed - and who has the means to protect themselves.
no fair water
This was not an isolated case. Similar patterns have been documented in cities such as São Paulo and Ćennaj (Madras, India) during droughts. Over the past two decades, more than 80 major cities around the world have faced severe water shortages. And while there is talk of climate change or population growth, studies show something else - that social inequality plays a key role. The rich have access and the ability to over-consume, while the less privileged face restrictions. Globally, the richest 20% of people use twelve times more water than the poorest 20%.
In India, where the World Bank promoted so-called water markets, the situation was similar. Corporations bought water rights from farmers in distress, and this exacerbated crises in the countryside. For many, this meant the end of crops, debt and lack of livelihoods. In Delhi, a quarter of the slums have no access to running water and must rely on cisterns - at prices up to twelve times higher than city rates. In India, this is compounded by caste segregation - Dalit communities are still sometimes excluded from access to rural wells.
In Zimbabwe, water scarcity directly hits girls' rights - especially to education. In many regions, they, along with adult women, are responsible for fetching water on a daily basis. It is not uncommon for them to walk several kilometers a day, carrying heavy containers - at the expense of school, rest and safety. In times of drought, many families make decisions: girls drop out of school to help fetch water and food or care for younger siblings. In turn, water shortages in the schools themselves cause girls - especially during menstruation - to miss classes because they are not provided with basic hygiene. As a result, water poverty turns into so-called "time poverty," which contributes to dropping out of school.
Similar situations exist in many countries in Africa and Asia, where water is technically available - but requires hours of walking, carrying and standing in lines. Even if a well is located within a few kilometers, the cost of daily "thirst" is borne unevenly. The effort put into fetching water not only limits access to education or work, but also perpetuates deeper class and gender inequalities. Studies show that when the water source is closer to home - either through piped installations or new water points - girls' school attendance increases, and women are able to devote time to gainful employment.
According to Farhana Sultana, professor of geography at Syracuse University and director of research in the Program on Environmental Cooperation and Conflict at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the experience of access to water is strongly linked to gender, social status and infrastructure. Sultana calls this phenomenon "embodied" water inequality - because it affects not just statistics, but bodies[2]. It is women's bodies, especially in the poorest communities, that bear the brunt of systemic inadequacies on a daily basis. Water work - though invisible - is physical, emotional and political work. And it is impossible to talk about water justice without seeing who carries that water and under what conditions.
the right to drink
In recent years, water distribution models have increasingly come under the microscope of human rights organizations and grassroots movements. These movements point out that in an era of new investments - such as lithium mining and so-called green hydrogen projects - the pressure on water has grown even more. They are calling for a complete shift away from unequal year systems and a framework in which water is treated as a common good rather than an object of speculation. The organizations seek to restore water's status as a common good. The idea is not only to stop privatization, but also to formally recognize water as a human right and ensure its public management.
In Latin America, one such movement is MODATIMA (Movimiento de Defensa por el Acceso al Agua, la Tierra y la Protección del Medioambiente), an organization founded in 2010 in the Chilean province of Petorca. It was formed in response to worsening water shortages caused by prolonged drought and the takeover of resources by large avocado plantations. MODATIMA fights for the rights of local communities, workers and small farmers, raising the issue of water looting by the agro-industrial sector in cooperation with politicians. At the center of its activities is opposition to privatization, based on the controversial 1981 Water Code, and the pursuit of "justice for rivers." The organization also emphasizes the social and gender dimensions of these inequities, highlighting the burden on women and the need to move away from patriarchal structures of resource management. Its activities go beyond the local scale - they range from street protests to participation in international debates, including through the Red Vida network.
One of the highlights of this struggle at the European level was the Right2Water citizens' initiative, which in 2013 collected 1.9 million signatures opposing EU pressure to privatize water services. It was the first ever successful European citizens' initiative - and the beginning of a movement that brought together people from different countries and backgrounds.
The initiators demanded that the human right to water and sanitation be enshrined in EU policies in a real, rather than merely declaratory, way. Their demands struck at the very heart of the EU internal market, where the logic of competition and profit has prevailed for years. While the European Commission publicly acknowledged that "water is not a commodity, but a common good," it did not change the rules of the market. As a result, the political dispute continues - over who has the right to decide on water, who is served by decisions made in Brussels, and whether a human right can really be enforced in a market economy.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these questions. With the health crisis, it was clear that access to water is not as equal and universal in Europe as it might seem. And yet, in many parts of the world, the situation is far more dire, with an uneven burden.
In 2010, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that recognized the right to safe, clean drinking water and sanitation as a right essential to the enjoyment of life and other human rights. It was the first document of this stature that so explicitly referred to access to water as a right, not a privilege. A few months later, the UN Human Rights Council affirmed that this right was legally binding. It referred to the earlier findings of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which had already indicated that access to water and sanitation stems from the right to an adequate standard of living, as does the right to food and housing.
Although 178 countries have already recognized this right at least once through an international declaration or resolution, in practice its realization faces many obstacles. Recognition of the right is only the beginning. The real question is who bears responsibility for its implementation and what "access" means in a world where you can have a tap but not water.
A challenging future
The debates around water justice are making it increasingly clear that the question of access cannot be separated from the question of the governance model. Should water be a common good or a marketable commodity? After all, we are increasingly using water for more than just our daily needs. Language models such as ChatGPT consume significant amounts of water for cooling computing infrastructure - both directly, through evaporation systems, and indirectly, through electricity requirements. It is estimated that training a large language model can require as much as 700,000 liters of water, and a single user session can require 2 to 4 liters.
Globally, AI-enabled data centers may consume more water per year than entire countries (e.g. Denmark) in the coming years. Regions already facing water shortages will be particularly hard hit. Although some companies declare the use of alternative cooling methods or water recovery, the scale of the problem is growing faster than declarations of responsibility. Parallel to water justice efforts, therefore, must go a critical look at the development of technologies that, while invisible to the user, also burden the planet in terms of water resources.
Water justice doesn't just mean fixing a system that is operating unevenly. It means moving away from systems in which the market determines who can drink, who can wash, and who can give up other needs to pay the bill. There is a growing body of research and grassroots activity that believes that as long as water is subject to the logic of profit, its distribution will reflect social hierarchies.
Or you might as well not read the publications they hand out at the Biennial.
Magdalena Milert
[1] Piper, K. (2014). The price of thirst: Global water inequality and the coming chaos. U of Minnesota Press.
[2] Sultana, F. (2009). Gender, Class, and Access to Water: Three Cases in a Poor and Crowded Delta. Society & Natural Resources, 22(10), 898-911.
Sultana, F. (2020). Embodied Intersectionalities of Urban Citizenship: Water, Infrastructure, and Gender in the Global South. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 110(5), 1407-1424.
