it argues that market strategies alone can determine appropriate water uses by solving the problem of diverging private and social measures of value however on american indian reservations in the american west and among the indigenous populations aroimd the world there exists a great concern about the application of neoclassical economics to water steenstra although the costs of a water allocation such as equipment labour and time may be easily identified by market prices monetising the benefits of preserving american indian cultures species ecosystems and clean rivers are very difficult