Background A group of researchers have carried out the first systematic global review of water allocation between urban and rural areas. The report finds that as urbanisation continues to increase and water supplies become less reliable, water is increasingly being re-allocated from rural to urban areas. The report notes that while the re-allocation projects are common, they are often expensive, time-consuming and have repercussions for the environment and for both the rural sources of water and the urban recipients. Comment Globally, national laws and policies often favour domestic water use and consumption over other uses. As a result, urban areas often receive priority in the allocation of national water resources. This not only raises concerns about the logistics of how to transfer water between urban and rural environments, but also raises issues about how the water is used once it reaches urban centres. Often, it is not only used for domestic purposes, but also for commercial and industrial uses. One case study, in Burkina Faso, found that although 70 per cent of the population is rural and economic growth in the country relies largely on agriculture, a significant percentage of the water that is transferred to Ouagadougou (the capital city) is not used primarily for drinking and domestic use. Meanwhile, irrigation upstream of the city has been limited, to preserve the quality of drinking water. As a result, communities living around the Ziga reservoir (which supplies Ouagadougou with fresh water) must rely on increasingly erratic rainfall to support agricultural activities. Poverty reduction in developing countries often relies on agriculture and agricultural development is more effective at reducing poverty than other types of economic activity (with a few exceptions). Water quality and quantity issues are not only a concern when transferring water from rural areas to urban centres, but also when urban pollution affects water supplies. This has been seen in towns such as Tiruppur, in South India. The town has grown rapidly over the last two decades, increasing its need for water; that growth largely driven by its hosiery industry. The hosiery sector is water intensive and Tirippur boasts over 700 bleaching and dyeing units, which use significant amounts of water. Not only has this led to farmers selling water to factories for profit (which has caused nearby wells to dry up due to over-extraction), but an increase in the quantity of effluent from bleaching and dyeing has caused significant levels of pollution in both rivers and groundwater. This has not only affected urban water supplies, because industrial pollutants have also seeped into irrigation tanks and a downstream reservoir. As a result, irrigation and fishing have become unsustainable in areas surrounding Tirippur. Locals have not been compensated for this damage. The same problem has been reported in China, where reports indicate that 80 per cent of the available groundwater in rural areas has been made unfit for drinking or bathing, due to contamination from industry and farming. Reducing water supplies to urban areas would be difficult and undesirable, especially as urbanisation continues to increase worldwide, but more must be done to improve equity between urban and rural water access. In particular, the authors of the recent report suggested that the political power of cities has caused rural stakeholders to be left out of the process. By involving rural regions in the design and implementation of water re-allocation projects, it should be possible to improve the governance of these projects and mitigate their negative impacts on rural communities .