The first purpose of this paper is to Show how constructed knowledge always overcomes knowledge based upon observed science. The second is to Show how societies in neo-liberal industrial economies have, in late modernity, become very risk-aware. This high risk-awareness is a result of the campaigning of environmental and Other activists and the unprecedented ability to Share bad news rapidly through globalized information technology and the media. The resulting hyper-risk-aware societies are troubled as much by constructed risks as by real ones and there is confusion because risk can be more easily foregrounded and backgrounded by political imperatives than science-based arguments. These societies have also learned to be aware of the risks ‘manufactured’ by the processes associated With advancing modernity without being able to deal rationally With their causes. The Study uses cases from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) water sector to illustrate the consequences of these phenomena for water policy-making in the region.