THE LONG-TERM FUTURE DEMAND FOR WATER SECTOR INFRASTRUCTURE to water and sanitation services, access by much of the rest of the world is patchy. Services are provided by almost every conceivable mix of public and private involvement and tend to be centralised with large treatment facilities and distribution and collection networks. In the rest of the world, local and very variable services exist for water supplies, often with informal sanitation (open air). This is common even in industrially developing countries such as India. In the recent past most OECD countries have at least attempted to maintain their water assets and extended these where necessary to cope with increasing populations, demands and expectations. Often the capacity of the original systems is stretched due to suburban growth. The most developed countries now recognise that the large-scale centralised systems may no longer be viable, due to high maintenance costs and resource needs. This is true for both water supply and wastewater infrastructure. In Australia, water management at or near the source of rainfall via direct roof runoff collection and storage, and through grey water recycling and even recycling of sewage at source are all options now part of the portfolio of how best to provide and maintain water supplies. As well as changes in ambient technologies, new water policies are being introduced that establish water markets allowing trade to reallocate water both between users and between sectors (WSAA, 2005). Various commentators suggest that more dispersed and localised wastewater systems are required even in the major developed cities (e.g. Tjandraatmadja et al., 2005) along with nutrient recovery and better control of substances introduced into wastewater systems (Matsui et al., 2001). Although there are arguments over the relative merits of localised (or "on-site") systems for wastewater management, serving individual or small groups of properties - compared with the "end-of-pipe" systems traditionally used - there is a growing usage