failure to make the nature of these risks clear can result in overinvestment in waterdependent enterprises and calls for compensation when entitlements need to be reduced in order to avoid compromising water quality and other environmental outcomes for instance it is critical to avoid any shortage in water availability for cooling nuclear power plants as the consequences are unacceptably high however farmers growing low value annual crops may be willing to forego water use during times of scarcity especially if they can recover greater value from trading their water entitlements to higher value uses than they can by using the water various water users also have different capacities to manage the risk of freshwater shortage by improving efficiency relying on alternative water sources or adjusting the timing of their water use