Conveniently, I had data from GWI's 2011 water tariff survey (see this post), and I looked at the average price of water for 86 cities in eastern and western Europe [XLS].

Guess what?

The PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) in the center of the European financial crisis have 19 out of the 30 cheapest tariffs for water.*

There does, indeed, seem to be a connection between badly managed water services and badly managed government budgets.**

Bottom Line: Economic and environmental sustainability are the same, for water AND government.

David Zetland is the author of Aguanomics.