Access to safe, affordable water is a necessity for human health and well-being. But when droughts strike areas that are already water-stressed, water providers are forced to enact measures to curtail water usage or invest in supplies from more expensive sources, which can increase costs for consumers.
According to a recent study from the Fletcher Lab at Stanford University, published in Nature Water, these measures can disproportionately affect water bills for low-income households, making water more costly for the most vulnerable people.“A low-income household often has a different response to curtailment measures and surcharges because of how much water they used before the drought,” says Benjamin
