For the most part, economic research in Latin America has had a ‘macro’ orientation (e.g., economic growth, monetary and fiscal policy, hyperinflation crisis). This is perfectly understandable because of the macro instability that has affected the entire region for decades and that still remains in many places.

We used 2008 DHS data sets to construct child height- and weight-for-age Z-scores and used regression analysis to analyze the effects of different sources of drinking water and sanitation on child health outcomes in Nigeria. We also calculated the probability of a child being stunted or underweight as our measure of malnutrition among children aged 0–59 months.

The design of a sensor-placement scheme capable of detecting all possible contamination events for a water distribution system before consumers are put at risk is essentially impossible given current technologies and budgets.

The following policy recommendation is provided based on the research findings of this project.

(1) Water pricing policy reform can be regarded as a macro level economic reform instrument. It can improve water use efficiency and help to prevent water pollution, which is regarded as a win-win solution for water resources. The current price level of water in Beijing is still very low compared with the long-run marginal cost. Therefore, it is quite necessary to increase the price.

The two main research objectives of the WRC project K5/1413 were to generate information that would be useful in guiding the efficient allocation of river water to South African estuaries and to test selected hypotheses on factors that explained willingness to pay for river inflows into South African estuaries.

In pursuing these objectives this project followed on and extended some of the findings from WRC project K5/1304.

Designing a robust sensor network to detect accidental contaminants in water distribution systems is a challenge given the uncertain nature of the contamination events (what, how much, when, where and for how long) and the dynamic nature of water distribution systems (driven by the random consumption of consumers).

The design of a sensor-placement scheme capable of detecting all possible contamination events for a water distribution system before consumers are put at risk is essentially impossible given current technologies and budgets.

We study the economic performance of Benthic Resource Management Areas (BRMAs) in central-southern Chile. The analysis considers 26 managed areas with Agreements of Use declaring Chilean abalone (Concholepas concholepas) to be the main exploited benthic resource from 2001 to 2003. Our analysis explores the role played by several characteristics thought to be potential BRMA performance determinants. These variables were defined and grouped into four types: economic, environmental–biological, institutional–organizational, and organizational leader.

The purposes of placing sensors in water distribution systems vary from complying with water quality regulations, monitoring accidental contamination events, and detecting intentional contamination events.