THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency has called for all water use throughout Europe to be metered and charged after finding that use amounts to the equivalent of two Olympic swimming pools per person per year.
In a major report, Water Resources across Europe: Confronting Water Scarcity and Drought, released yesterday, the agency said water "should be priced according to the volume used" in all sectors, including agriculture.
The report recommends that local authorities throughout Europe should create incentives for greater use of alternative water supplies, such as treated waste water from sewage plants, “grey water” from baths or sinks and “harvested rainwater”, to reduce water stress.
“The use of treated municipal waste water is currently low throughout Europe but could expand significantly, particularly for the irrigation of crops and golf courses . . . Both harvested rainwater and grey water can be used for . . . the watering of gardens and toilet flushing.”
“We are living beyond our means when it comes to water”, said agency executive director Prof Jacqueline McGlade. “Over-exploitation is not sustainable. It has a heavy impact on the quality and quantity of the remaining water, as well as the ecosystems which depend on it.”
While southern Europe continues to experience the greatest scarcity problems, the report highlights that water stress is also growing in parts of northern Europe. This would be exacerbated by the frequency of droughts due to climate change.
Europe abstracts around 285 cubic kilometres of freshwater annually, representing on average 5,300 cubic metres per capita. On average, 44 per cent is used for energy production, 24 per cent for agriculture, 21 per cent for public water supply and 11 per cent for industry.
The report says these figures “mask significant differences in sectoral water use across the Continent”. In southern Europe, for example, agriculture accounts for 60 per cent of the total water abstracted and reaches as much as 80 per cent in certain areas.
The huge volume of water used in agriculture has been “driven in part by the fact that farmers have seldom had to pay the ‘true’ cost of water” and also by subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy “to produce water-intensive crops using inefficient techniques”.
Tourism has also “markedly increased public water use, particularly during the peak summer holiday months and especially in southern European coastal regions already subject to considerable water stress”.
Demand for water often exceeds supply. As a result, “problems of water scarcity are widely reported, with reduced river flows, lowered lake and groundwater levels and the drying up of wetlands becoming increasingly commonplace”, the report says.
“We have to cut demand, minimise the amount of water that we are extracting and increase the efficiency of its use,” Prof McGlade said. She also called for a crackdown on the “widespread” illegal abstraction of water, usually by farmers.
The report, released at the fifth World Water Forum in Istanbul ahead of World Water Day next Sunday, calls for leakage in public water supplies to be addressed. “In parts of Europe, water loss via leakage can exceed 40 per cent.”
