Water is a huge issue in the world today and as a result it has become a huge business. This has created some problems as the best interests of the water industry are not necessarily the same as the best interests of the people. This has already created conflict with governments and things are going to get worse as the amount of available fresh water declines.
The water industry is the business of supplying drinking water and handling sewage, it is a much bigger business than most people realize. Every year countries spend billions of dollars on making sure that they are able to supply safe water to their citizens and in managing the sewage that this creates. Because of the importance of the water industry it is heavily regulated and in most cases it is actually controlled by the government.
Historically governments have been responsible for supplying water and for the most part this is still the case. There are a few reasons for this, the main one being that water is generally a monopoly. Rarely is it practical for more than one water company to supply a city. As a result the government usually either provides the service or they form a company that they own to provide. In some cases private industry is contracted to do the job, when this happens they are heavily regulated and the prices are usually set by the government.
The other reason that governments normally control the water industry is that water security is a critical issue for most countries. The water supply is limited and there are a lot of countries that are currently not able to meet their own needs. As a result protecting water supplies is a critical issue for governments. Over the years a number of wars have been fought for control of water supplies and there will probably be a lot more of them in the future. As more and more countries realize how vulnerable their water supplies are this will become an even bigger issue. As a result governments will be very cautious about giving control of the water to private companies.
Over the last few years the water industry has been greatly complicated by the rise in popularity of bottled water. This is because the bottled water is being sold by private companies which does create issues over water security. Currently the bottlers can get the water in one country and sell it another, how long they will be allowed to do this is an open question. As governments start to become more protective of their water supplies this will be bring them into conflict with the companies that produce the bottled water. Since these are giant multinational companies it does remain to be seen how much control the government will have over them.