While everyone needs “access to safe water in adequate quantities for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene, and sanitation facilities that do not compromise health or dignity” (UN-Water, 2015: 37), not everyone gets it. Similarly, water is an essential input for manufacturing processes. But distributional conflicts - across locations, sectors, income categories and social groups - loom especially large in the case of water, and the manner of its provision can raise environmental concerns. Longer-term concerns about water overuse and inadequate renewal of fresh water supplies, as well as water pollution, along with the (often unintended) consequences of major water infrastructure projects (such as displacement because of dams, waterlogging and salinity through canal networks, inequality of access and so on) mean that public involvement in its provision and regulation is inevitable even when much of the infrastructure is privately provided. In addition to facilitating communications in general, such infrastructure is increasingly required by a wide range of activities in banking, trade and production, and has enabled new forms of economic activity to emerge.