Population Megatrends and Water Management

Demographic development is a megatrend, which ties to almost any other conceivable megatrend. Comprehension of most significant features of the world’s population development is fundamental when elaborating other megatrends. Despite, the concurrent debate on development policies, and future prospects of freshwater management seem to overlook the dynamism and continuous, rapid and location-specific changes in many of the key demographic features as they develop in different parts of the world. This chapter demonstrates some of such features, calling them ‘myths’, and elaborates the impact of such features on water management. It is recommended to be careful with the use of many common development jargon words (such as ‘global south’ and ‘industrialised country’) and to scrutiny the key demographics before entering any debate on megatrends that has a link to demographic development.