The time-series rates of daily-life water consumption in Asia have not always been precisely obtainable. But let us take the case of Japan as an example. While its urbanization rate has risen by 6 percentile points from 71.2% to 77.0%, the rate of daily-life water consumption has tended to increase slowly. The total consumption of daily-life water has certainly increased by 50% during the period, whereas the increase in consumption per capita per day is 25%, which is only a 1% edge-up per year. Such saturation of water consumption, maintained by a certain level of supply, may be one of the factors that keep the rate of daily-life water consumption from rising very much.
Associated with the population growth in urban areas, however, water consumption has been increasing markedly toward the 21st century. According to forecasts of World Resource Research Center, urban water consumption in China, one of the two population giants in Asia, will likely to increase by 120% during the period from 1988 to 2000. That in India, the other giant, will increase by 40% between 1990 and 2000, and by a further 50 percentile points by 2025 - a slightly slower increase than the former.
According to research by the United Nations, in developing countries, the proportion of population receiving sufficient water supply is 87% in urban area and only 33% in rural areas. This implies that urbanization is not hindered by the requirements of urban water supply.
Such situation related to urbanization suggests that there way be some effects of urbanization other than the lifting of the population's living or consumption standards, and the rise in the proportion of urban consumption of water resource.
Daily-life water, as a counterpart to agricultural water or industrial water, includes water for domestic use (drinks, cooking, washing, etc. ) and, in a larger sense, water for urban activities. The latter includes water for commercial use, such as restaurants or hotels, water for public use, such as public toilets, and water for extinguishing fires.
