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 Printing Instructions  Large text Français | | ||||||||||
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The roles of government and especially the private sector in water management are being radically reappraised. The EU water framework directive requires EU Member States to ensure, by 2010, that water-pricing policies provide adequate incentives to use water resources efficiently and to recover the true costs of water services in an equitable manner. Most countries are progressing towards water pricing systems. Investing in water supply and sanitation has produced benefits far greater than those directly related to the cost of treating water-related diseases. The privatisation of water supplies in some countries has resulted in an increase in the number of households disconnected from water supplies.
In the United Kingdom, for example, the number of domestic disconnections rose from 8 000 to over 21 000 between 1989 and 1992 following privatization of the water industry. Water has become an increasingly expensive commodity and where water meters have been introduced, those with lower incomes use less water. While there has been a general trend
towards higher water prices throughout
Europe, water prices still vary considerably.
Many of the capitals and major cities in
Mediterranean countries have below average
prices, as do cities in countries with
abundant water supplies. In contrast, water
Data from 1998 for
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Water
Supply
In many EECCA countries, the water supply networks are in poor condition due to faulty design and construction, as well as lack of maintenance and ineffective operation as a consequence of the economic decline in the past decade. Leakage is generally high and in many cases 30–50% of the water is lost. Water supply is often interrupted in localities across the EECCA region. In many cities water is provided according to a schedule. The number of infrastructure accidents is growing. The water pressure in the system is not always sufficient due to old pipes; households living on higher floors often do not receive any water. The extent of provision of piped drinking water supplies to households varies between urban and rural areas, with rural populations in Eastern Europe least well provided. Continuity of supply is also a problem in some areas. Inefficient use of water resulting from factors such as network leakage and inappropriate irrigation is a significant problem. Water Losses from Urban Water Networks
In many EU accession and applicant countries, only a minor part of the area equipped with irrigation structures is actually irrigated (e.g. 10- 15% in Romania). In many eastern countries and in EECCA, the water distribution networks, pumps and sprinklers are badly maintained, leaks have increased and the pumping systems are highly energy-intensive. New water supply projects are planned in Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey and rehabilitation of the badly maintained irrigation structures in Eastern Europe and Central Asia may increase the demand for irrigation water. Most crops only require water for a limited number of months that do not necessarily coincide with the seasonal distribution of precipitation and runoff. The natural water supply decreases in summer and autumn, having a negative effect on crops. As a result reservoirs have been constructed along watercourses.
In Europe, approximately 13% of mean annual runoff is stored behind dams. The primary functions of the reservoirs are hydroelectric power production, public water supply and irrigation storage. The countries with the highest percentage volume of stored water in relation to their annual renewable freshwater resources (over 20%) are Turkey, Spain and Cyprus. These countries use the highest proportion of their water resources for irrigation. Spain and the United Kingdom have the largest number of reservoirs used for public water supply with consequent problems of evaporation.
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Water
Use
On average, 42% of total water abstraction in
Europe is used for agriculture, 23% for industry,
18 % for urban use and 18% for energy production. The breakdown of water consumption between the various economic sectors varies considerably from one region to another, depending on natural conditions and economic and demographic structures. In France (64%), Germany (64%) and the Netherlands (55%), for example, most of the water abstracted is used to produce electricity. In Greece (88%), Spain (72%) and Portugal (59%), water is mostly used for irrigation. In Northern European countries such as Finland and Sweden, little water is used in agriculture. In contrast, cellulose and paper production, both highly intensive water-consuming industries, are significant activities and water is abstracted mainly for industrial purposes (66% and 28% respectively of total abstractions).
The water required for drinking and other domestic purposes is a significant proportion of the total water demand. The proportion of water for abstracted urban use ranges from about 6.5% in Germany to more than 50% in the United Kingdom. Population distribution and density are key factors influencing the availibility of water resources. Increased urbanization concentrates water demand and can lead to the overexploitation of local water resources. Higher standards of living are changing water
demand patterns. This is reflected mainly in
increased domestic water use, especially for personal Despite unreliable water supply, the level of domestic water consumption in EECCA is high. The leakage in pipes is very high and is often counted as consumption.
One of the biggest pressures on water resources is agriculture and irrigation practices. Agriculture accounts for approximately 30% of total water abstraction and about 55% of water use in Europe. The role of irrigation differs between countries and regions because of climatic conditions. In Southern Europe, it is an essential element of agricultural production, whereas in Central and Northern Europe, irrigation is generally used to improve production in dry summers. The amount of water used for irrigation in Italy and Spain is about 10 times higher than in the central EU countries combined. France, Greece and Portugal each use about the same amount of water for irrigation as central EU countries. Given high temperatures and high evapotranspiration,
average water consumption per hectare
is higher in Southern European countries such as Southern European countries account for 74 % of the total irrigated area in Europe. This is expected to increase further following new irrigation development in some countries. In the central EU Accession Countries, changes in the economic structure and land ownership, and the consequent collapse of large-scale irrigation and drainage systems and agriculture production have been the main drivers for agriculture changes over the past 10 years. There has been a clear upward trend in irrigable land in the EU Member States. Across the 15 Member States, irrigable surfaces rose by 152 000 ha/year between 1961 and 1980, 146 000 ha/year between 1980 and 1990 and 123 000 ha/year between 1990 and 1996. In Europe, the most intensively cultivated land area forms an arc extending from northern France to the Ukraine. Crop intensity is higher in basins in northern France, the Netherlands, and southern England, and in the sub-basins of the Oder, Vistula, Dnieper, and Don rivers in Eastern Europe. There are also intensively cropped areas in parts of the Danube basin and sub-basins close to the Black Sea, particularly around the Sea of Azov. Industrial water demand is especially pertinent to urban areas with high populations, as industries are usually located in these areas. The amount of water used by industry and the proportion of total abstraction accounted for by industry vary greatly between countries. Abstraction for industrial purposes in Europe has been decreasing since 1980. The reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy should lead to planting of crops with lower water requirements. Introduction of more efficient irrigation systems should also reduce water use. However, improvements in water use efficiency in the agricultural sector generally lag behind those in the urban and industrial sectors.
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Water
Stress
Water resources are unevenly distributed in Europe. Average annual rainfall ranges from 3 000 mm in western Norway to 100-400 mm over much of Central Europe and less than 25 mm in central and southern Spain. Many European countries have relatively little water available. Southern countries are particularly affected, with Malta having only 100 m3 per capita per year (less than 5 000 m3 is regarded as low; less than 1 000 m3 is extremely low and is commonly used as a benchmark of water scarcity; and above 20 000 m3 is considered high). Heavily populated countries with moderate rainfall in Western Europe (Belgium, Denmark, United Kingdom) are also affected, as are those in Central Europe (Czech Republic, Poland). Water resources are unevenly distributed and declining in regions of the Russian Federation. Insufficient water resources are reported in southern Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, the middle and lower reaches of the Volga River, the Caspian lowland, the southern parts of western Siberia, Kazakhstan and the Turkmenistan lowland. Only the Nordic countries, sparsely populated with high rainfall, have high water availability. Excess of water abstraction over water use is especially prominent in the Central Asian republics, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
A drought is an extreme hydrological event, whereas aridity is restricted to regions with low rainfall and is a permanent feature of climate. Recent European droughts have emphasized that the hazard is not limited to semi-arid countries and may become a normal part of climate in many countries. Drought has a number of effects: loss of human lives (directly through thirst or indirectly through starvation or disease); loss of crops and animal stock; water supply problems, including shortages and deterioration of quality; increased pollution of freshwater ecosystems by concentration of pollutants; regional extinction of animal species by the loss of biotopes; forest fires; wetland degradation; desertification; effects on aquifers; and other environmental consequences. In Europe, drought is causing significant ecological and economic impacts. Drying out of rivers threatens the ecological balance; grasslands are less productive; crops dry in the fields; and dry conditions favour higher occurrence and magnitude of forest fires. In other parts of the world, repetitive drought events are causing soil desiccation leading to desertification.
Desertification is land degradation occurring in the arid, semiarid and dry sub-humid areas of the world. It has affected large areas in the Mediterranean basin and Russian Federation and is threatening even larger surfaces. The vulnerability of land to severe degradation that leads to desertification is attributed to several factors, including: large moisture deficits, climatic variability with frequent extreme events, steep terrain, unfavourable geologic formations, disrupted climatic and vegetative periods, shallow soils and long periods of intensive human interference. The heatwave that scorched Europe during the summer of 2003 and the ensuing forest fires made the affected regions more vulnerable to desertification. In Portugal, a total of 215 000 ha of land were devastated by fires in 2003, or 7% of Portugal’s woodland. Already more than one-third of its land is at risk of desertification. In Spain, 31% of the land is under serious threat of desertification. The Kalmyk Republic (comprising most of the Northern Caspian Depression) is the most arid region of the European part of the Russian Federation. Over 80% of its territory is now in the grip of desertification, and almost half is either severely or very severely affected. This is surpassed only by the deserts of Central Asia. Among European countries, 44 countries are Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and 22 countries are affected by desertification, land degradation and drought.
Population density determines the availability of water per person. Population density varies widely across Europe, from fewer than 10 inhabitants per km2 in Iceland, the Russian Federation and some of the central Asian republics (Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) to over 300 per km2 in the Benelux countries and San Marino and over 1 000 per km2 in Malta.
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Water & Sanitation
In Europe and Central Asia, 120 million people do not have access to safe drinking water, and even more have no access to sanitation. The biggest challenge to meeting the environmental targets of the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration for the region is in water supply and sanitation. Despite official data showing that a large percentage of people have access to improved water supplies, there is a serious problem of water quality, which constitutes a major health hazard. The quality and the quantity of drinking water supply are important to public health, since direct transfer of diseases from person to person, or by contaminated food, is higher when poor hygiene practices result from insufficient water. Many European countries have high quality drinking water supplies. However, treatment and disinfection are insufficient in some countries, particularly in those where economic/political changes have led to infrastructure deterioration. Installation of advanced treatment works is increasing in many countries, particularly in Western Europe. Drinking water quality is particularly of concern in the EECCA countries. These countries have major problems with microbiological contamination of drinking water supplies. The percentage of samples exceeding microbiological standards in EECCA is between about 5 and 30%. This percentage is higher for non-centralized drinking water supplies, primarily in rural areas. At least half the population of the Russian Federation is estimated to be at risk from unclean water as a result of ageing infrastructure and the high cost of disinfectants. EU countries also have problems with their drinking water and
more than 10% of European Union citizens are potentially exposed
to microbiological and other contaminants that exceed the maximum
allowable concentrations. In Western Europe, as well as in other
parts of the region, the overuse of groundwater resources for drinking
water raises grave concerns. About 60% of the European cities with
more than 100 000 Faecal pollution of recreational waters is one of the major hazards facing users, although microbial contamination from other sources as well as chemical and physical aspects also affect the suitability of water for recreation.
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Bibliography
Aquastat, 2003. Review of world water resources by
country. FAO, Rome EC, 2002. European Commission (EC): Bathing
Water Quality, Annual Report, 2002 bathing season. EC, Eurostat, DG Environment & DG Agriculture,
1999. Water and agriculture: contribution to an
analysis of a critical but difficult relationship. EEA, 2003. Europe’s Environment: The Third
Assessment. Environmental assessment report No 10. EEA, 2003a. EEA Indicator Fact Sheet: Water use
efficiency (in cities): leakage. EEA, 2003b. EEA Indicator Fact Sheet: Water
exploitation index (Kiev). EEA, 2003c. EEA Indicator Fact Sheet: Sectoral water
use. EEA, 2003d. EEA Core Set of Indicators, second
consultation process: Water use by tourism.
European Water Association (EWA), 2003. EWA
Yearbook 2003. JMP, 2003. Joint Monitoring Programme (WHO and
UNICEF) for water supply and sanitation: The Global
Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000. OECD, 1999. Compendium of Environmental Statistics. OECD, 2002. Environmental Data : Compendium
2002, Inland Waters; OECD Environment
Directorate, Working Group on Environment
Information and Outlooks. OFEFP, 2003. L’eau souterraine. Office fédéral
de
l’environnement, des forêts et du
paysage (OFEFP),
CH-3003 Berne. 31 p. ORNL, 2002. Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(ORNL): LandScan 2002 Global Population
Database. Stefan Siebert, Petra D”ll and Jippe Hoogeveen,
2001. Global map of irrigated areas version
2.0,
Center for Environmental Systems Research,
Univerity
of Kassel, Germany / Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations,
Rome, Italy". UN Population Division, 2002. World
Population
Prospects: the 2002 Revision. Population
Database. UNEP/GRID-Geneva, 2003. Population exposed to drought events in Europe. Unpublished data. Data source for precipitation: Climate Research Unit (CRU); Population CIESIN. WHO, 2002. Water and Health in Europe. WHO Regional Publications. European Series No 93. Bartram, J., Thyssen, N., Gowers, A., Pond, K., Lack, T. A Joint Report from the European Environment Agency and the WHO Regional Office for Europe. |
Water
a Public Good?
Water demand management measures are
being introduced to promote water use efficiency
in the major water sectors.
