This two-volume set, edited by Grafton (economics, Australian National U., Australia), collects 95 previously published journal articles covering the key issues and methodologies of water resource economics, a subject of growing importance for the world. They include much cited or "classic" papers, survey articles, many applied papers, and some theoretical papers. Broadly speaking, they cover the topical areas of environmental and in-stream flows; environmental valuation; water pollution; irrigation; groundwater use and management; residential and non-residential water use; rights, ownership, and efficiency; water demand and supply studies; water pricing and management; water scarcity and reliability; and water supply and demand in poor countries. Examples of specific topics include national estimates of the recreational value of stream flows, market transfers of water for environmental protection in the Western United States, the evaluation of river water quality improvements by the contingent valuation method, modeling regional agricultural production and salinity control alternatives for water quality policy analysis, regulating water quantity and quality in irrigated agriculture, income distributional implications of water policy decisions, competition versus optimal control in groundwater pumping, a discrete choice model of household water conservation retrofit activity using survey data, the effect of ownership on the relative efficiency of public and private water utilities, a model for constrained optimum water pricing and capacity expansion, the value of water supply reliability in urban water systems, and the pricing of domestic water services in Kenya. The papers were generally drawn from the past two decades, although some earlier papers are included. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Read Less