http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/05/29/is-water-becoming-%e2%80%98the-new-oil%e2%80%99/ 

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / May 29, 
 2008 edition

Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there's a 
 €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you're caught watering your flowers. A tanker    
 ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh 
 water - and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to    
 slake public thirst.                                                      
                                                                           
                                                                           
 Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer.  
 Australian cities are buying water from that nation's farmers and building
 desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18
 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing 
 in years.                                                                 
                                                                           
                                                                           
 Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum 
 in February, "is the oil of this century." Developed nations have taken   
 cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population    
 growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as  
 "blue gold."                                                              
                                                                           
                                                                           
 Water's hot-commodity status has snared the attention of big equipment    
 suppliers like General Electric as well as big private water companies    
 that buy or manage municipal supplies - notably France-based Suez and Aqua
 America, the largest US-based private water company.                      
...                             

Water and war: Will scarcity lead to conflict?                            
                                                                           
                                                                           
 Cherrapunjee, a town in eastern India, once held bragging rights as the   
 "wettest place on earth," and still gets nearly 40 feet of rain a year.   
 Ironically, officials recently brought in Israeli water-management experts
 to help manage and retain water that today sluices off the area's         
 deforested landscape so that the area can get by in months when no rain   
 falls.