in china and the united states water demands are concentrated in limited parts of the country in general where agriculture needs to be irrigated or where economic development is occurring this trend is explained largely by the rapid increase in irrigation development stimulated by food demand in the s and by the continued growth of agriculturebased economies wwap in the s some countries stabilised their abstractions through more efficient irrigation techniques the decline of water intensive industries eg mining steel increased use of cleaner production technologies and reduced losses in pipe networks trends since indicate a more general stabilisation of water abstractions and a relative decoupling between water use and gdp growth in the oecd area figure b