Increasing global pressure on water resources requires many actions from governments and individuals to achieve sustainable levels of water use. These involve management tasks such as project development and utility operation, but the degree of interdependence among the many participants in water management is so great that additional regulatory and coordination mechanisms are needed to control water development and uses.This book is designed to be the introductory work in the new Governance and Management for Sustainable Water Systems Series. It introduces the subject of governance of water systems and illuminates relatively unexplored topics of water resources management.The material is practical but advanced in the sense that theories of industry organization, governance, and institutional analysis are applied in new ways. New case study applications are provided in the book and help the reader to understand how their disciplines apply to water management. The case studies are drawn from each sector and region in the world, including cases from the U.S.A., Europe, the Middle East, South America and a global case to cover water system privatization.