Water prices are expected to be raised again in a number of cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.

That current prices are too low to reflect the true value of this increasingly scarce resource, and the cost of protecting the water source is once again stressed as the main reason for the hike.

True, most Chinese cities are suffering from a shortage of water, which hinders local economic development and social progress.

There is nationwide consensus on the need to save water, and such awareness can only increase with higher prices.

But we have never been told exactly what should be a reasonable price for water, allowing for expenses of protecting the source and recycling waste-water.

People need to know why they should pay that much for a cubic meter of water they use. The too vague rhetoric of water being an increasingly scarce resource and current price being too low is not persuasive. This is another case that calls for more transparency.

While we have been repeatedly calling for saving water, most cities caught in water shortage are extending the lawns that need to be watered all the time; and the number of golf courses, which also require water to stay green, is also increasing despite the water scarcity in our cities.

Car washing points and bath parlors, too, are mushrooming in these cities. It is estimated that at least 30 million cubic meters of water is used annually to wash cars in Beijing. That amounts to as much water as 12 Kunming Lakes in the Summer Palace. Of this quantity, only 1 percent is recycled water.

If our civic authorities are really concerned with saving water, a lot of work can be done in these areas - for the amount of water thus saved will be much more than what residents may save because of higher water prices.

While this may not justify keeping water prices at the present level, we need to know the cost of water we use, the cost of recycling waste-water and the cost for protecting the sources of water. We also need to know how the money charged for water was and will be spent.

With one fifth of the world's population, China's fresh water reserve is only 6 percent of the world's total. And, more than 70 percent of its waterways are polluted, which has aggravated the shortage.

In the circumstances, it seems unjustifiable to raise the price of water for residential use alone without doing anything to curb the use of water for some of the non-essential and wasteful activities mentioned above.

(China Daily July 20, 2009)