Stricter water regulations have environmental benefits. Drinking water quality can be improved, water pollution reduced and resilience to extreme weather events bolstered. But those who must subsequently invest in technological upgrades in order to comply can often see these regulations through the narrow lens of short-term economic setback.
Horatiu Rus and his graduate student Hongxiu Li have found these regulations may actually benefit the economy in the long-term; stricter water regulations, in fact, stimulate technological innovation. New markets open up for better and cheaper water-related technologies, thus reducing the costs for those who must comply.
“Induced technological innovation,” he says, “is an added benefit of regulating the quality and quantity of water, beyond the obvious environmental benefits. Such technological progress in turn has conservation and direct economic benefits.”