The incentive is to start pricing water appropriately. When water is priced appropriately it will be valued. When it is not priced appropriately, it is wasted and misused.

We should treat water the same way because water is a human right, a commodity, and a resource. This discussion is prominent in the early chapters of Planet Water (https://www.amazon.com/Planet-Water-Investing-Valuable-Resou...)

By mispricing the resource, we've gotten to where we are: 1) Massive inequality 2) Bottled water has become the default backup system to investing in rebuilding the tap water system 3) There is not enough investment to rebuild the tap water system. The paradox is best seen at an airport where a bottle of water is $5 in a single use plastic bottle (that lasts for 450 years) and the water fountain which is "free."

As a social capitalist, I believe "free" water is bad for the marketplace. I've written about this more here: https://drinktap.substack.com/p/tap-june-2020-update