Water statistics

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Most recent data as available July 2011: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database.

Water is essential for life, it is an indispensable resource for the economy, and also plays a fundamental role in the climate regulation cycle. The management and protection of water resources, of fresh and salt water ecosystems, and of the water we drink and bathe in is therefore one of the cornerstones of environmental protection. This article on water statistics presents data on freshwater resources and the human use of water in the European Union (EU), and includes information on water abstraction and wastewater treatment and disposal.

Table 1: Water resources - long-term annual average (1)
(1 000 million m³) - Source: Eurostat (env_watq1a)
Figure 1: Freshwater resources per capita - long-term average (1)
(1 000 m³ per inhabitant) - Source: Eurostat (env_watq1a)
Table 2: Groundwater and surface water abstraction, 1999-2009
(million m³) - Source: Eurostat (env_watq2)
Figure 2: Total freshwater abstraction by public water supply, 2009 (1)
(m³ per inhabitant) - Source: Eurostat (env_watq2)
Figure 3: Total freshwater abstraction for public water supply, selected countries, 1990-2009
(million m³) - Source: Eurostat (env_watq2)
Table 3: Population connected to urban wastewater treatment, 1999-2009
(% of total) - Source: Eurostat (env_watq4)
Figure 4: Population connected to wastewater treatment, 2009 (1)
(% of total) - Source: Eurostat (env_watq4)
Figure 5: Sewage sludge disposal from urban wastewater treatment, by type of treatment, 2009 (1)
(% of total mass) - Source: Eurostat (env_watq6)

Contents

Main statistical findings

Freshwater resources

The three main users of water are agriculture, industry and the domestic sector (households and services). The overall abstraction and use of water resources can be considered to be sustainable in the long-term in most of Europe. However, specific regions may face problems associated with water scarcity; this is especially the case in southern Europe, where it is likely that efficiency gains in relation to agricultural water use will need to be achieved in order to prevent seasonal water shortages. Regions associated with low rainfall, high population density, or intensive industrial activity may also face sustainability issues in the coming years, which may be exacerbated by natural resource endowments, geographical characteristics and freshwater management systems. A number of Member States receive a significant proportion of their water resources as inflows from upstream rivers: this is particularly the case in the Danube basin and for the Netherlands, and is also the case, to a lesser extent, in Latvia, Germany and Portugal.

One measure of sustainability in water management is the water exploitation index (WEI), calculated as water abstraction divided by long-term annual resources (Cosgrove and Rijsberman, 2000). A WEI above 20 % typically indicates water scarcity problems in a country or region, and the European Environment Agency (EEA) uses this value as a warning threshold, while WEI values of more than 40 % indicate severe stress on resources and unsustainable water use. Using this measure and subject to data availability, a relatively high degree of pressure exists on water resources in Cyprus, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Malta, with Cyprus being the only Member State to record a ratio of more than 40 %.

In absolute terms (see Table 1), total freshwater resources were broadly similar in Germany, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Italy, as each of these Member States reported a long-term average of annual freshwater resources of between 188 000 million m³ and 175 300 million m³. When expressed in relation to population size (see Figure 1), Finland and Sweden recorded the highest freshwater annual resources per capita (around 20 000 m³ per inhabitant or more). In contrast, relatively low levels (below 3 000 m³ per capita) were recorded in the six largest Member States (France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and Poland), as well as in Belgium and the Czech Republic, with the lowest level in Cyprus (410 m³ per inhabitant).

Water abstraction

There are considerable differences in the per capita amounts of freshwater abstracted within each of the Member States, in part reflecting the resources available, but also abstraction practices for public water supply, industrial and agricultural purposes, as well as land drainage and land sealing. These differences are also apparent when looking at the breakdown of water abstraction between groundwater and surface water resources (see Table 2). In Bulgaria and Romania surface water abstraction accounted for around ten times the volume of water abstracted from groundwater resources in the year 2009, with this ratio peaking at almost 14:1 for Lithuania. At the other end of the range, larger volumes of water were abstracted from groundwater resources in Latvia, Slovakia (2007), Cyprus and Malta.

Germany, France and Spain recorded the highest amounts of groundwater extracted in 2008 (2007 in the case of France), each with 5 700 million m³ or more. Looking at the development of groundwater abstraction during the ten-year period to 2009, the volume of groundwater extracted generally fell, although Estonia, Spain and Slovenia recorded abstraction levels that were between 15 % and 30 % higher, rising to 63 % higher for Malta; a smaller increase of just over 1 % was registered in Belgium.

Spain, Germany and France headed the ranking of Member States in relation to surface water abstraction, with more than 25 000 million m³ in 2007 or 2008. Developments in surface water abstraction levels were somewhat more pronounced than for groundwater. The volume of surface water abstracted in Lithuania (2009) and Slovakia (2007) was around half the level recorded some ten years earlier. The Czech Republic and Sweden reported that their volume of surface water abstracted increased during the period from 1999 to 2009 by around 10 % (1999 to 2007 for Sweden).

Public water supply

While the share of the public water supply sector in total water abstraction depends on the economic structure of a given country and can be relatively small, it is nevertheless often the focus of public interest, as it comprises the water volumes that are directly used by the population. Most EU Member States had annual rates of freshwater abstraction of between 50 m³ and 100 m³ per capita (see Figure 2), although extremes reflect specific conditions: for example, in Ireland (141 m³ per capita) – where the use of water from the public supply is free; or Bulgaria (129 m³ per capita) – where there are particularly high losses from the public network. Abstraction rates were also rather high in some Nordic and Alpine non-member countries, notably Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, where water resources are abundant and supply is hardly restricted. At the other end of the scale, Estonia and Lithuania reported low abstraction rates, in part resulting from below-average connection rates to the public supply, while Malta and Cyprus have partially replaced groundwater by desalinated seawater.

An analysis of the development of abstraction rates over time is shown for selected Member States in Figure 3. There was a marked decrease in abstraction in a few Member States (the example of Bulgaria is shown in the figure), while there was an increase in abstraction for other Member States (for example, Portugal). Abstraction rates were relatively stable in the majority of the Member States (see the example of Belgium), with a pattern of gradually decreasing abstraction rates commonly observed (see the example of Sweden). It is likely that the reduction in abstraction is a result of various factors, including the introduction of water-saving household appliances, and an increasing level of consciousness concerning the cost or value of water and the environmental consequences of wasting it.

Wastewater treatment

The proportion of the population connected to urban wastewater treatment covers those households that are connected to any kind of sewage treatment (see Table 3). This share was above 80 % in approximately half of the Member States for which data are available (mixed reference years), rising to 99 % in the Netherlands, 97 % in England and Wales and 95 % in Germany and Luxembourg, while Switzerland (97 %) also recorded a high connection rate. At the other end of the range, less than one in two households were connected to urban wastewater treatment in Bulgaria, Malta, Cyprus and Romania; new treatment plants are under construction in Malta and it is expected that this will lead to a 100 % connection rate by 2011.

In terms of treatment levels (see Figure 4), tertiary wastewater treatment was most common (again mixed reference periods) in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden and Greece, where at least four in every five persons were connected to this type of wastewater treatment. In contrast, no more than 1 % of the population was connected to tertiary wastewater treatment in Romania and Bulgaria.

The residual of wastewater treatment is sewage sludge. While the amount of sludge generated per capita depends on many factors and hence is quite variable across countries, the nature of this sludge – rich in nutrients, but also often loaded with high concentrations of pollutants such as heavy metals – has led countries to seek different pathways for its disposal, as illustrated in Figure 5. Typically, four different types of disposal make up a considerable share of the total volume of sewage sludge treated: more than two thirds of the total was used as fertiliser in agriculture in Cyprus, Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom, while another five Member States (Lithuania, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, France and Latvia), as well as Norway, reported between one and two thirds of their total mass of sewage sludge being disposed of through agricultural uses. In contrast, more than two thirds of sewage sludge was composted in Estonia, Finland and Slovakia. Otherwise, alternative forms of disposal may be used to reduce or eliminate the spread of pollutants on agricultural or gardening land; these include incineration and landfill. While the Netherlands, Slovenia, Belgium, Germany and Austria (as well as Switzerland) reported incineration as their primary pathway for disposal, its discharge into controlled landfills was practised as the primary pathway in Italy, and was used almost exclusively in Greece and Malta, as well as in Iceland.

Data sources and availability

Many of the water statistics produced by Eurostat have been used in the context of the development of EU legislation relating to water, as well as for environmental assessments, which in turn can give rise to new data needs. Water statistics are collected through the inland waters section of a joint OECD/Eurostat questionnaire which is frequently adapted to meet the demands of relevant policy frameworks. It currently reports on the following:

  • freshwater resources in groundwater and surface water – these can be replenished by precipitation and external inflow (water flowing into a country from other territories);
  • water abstraction – a major pressure on resources, although a large part of the water abstracted for domestic, industrial (including energy production) or agricultural use is returned to the environment and its water bodies, but often as wastewater with impaired quality;
  • water use – analysed by supply category and by industrial activities;
  • treatment capacities of urban wastewater treatment plants and the share of the population connected to them – which gives an overview of the development status of the infrastructure, in terms of quantity and quality, that is available for the protection of the environment from pollution by wastewater;
  • sewage sludge production and disposal – an inevitable product of wastewater treatment processes, its impact on the environment depends on the methods chosen for its processing and disposal;
  • generation and discharge of wastewater – pollutants present in wastewater have different source profiles and, similarly, the efficiency of treatment of any pollutant varies according to the method applied.

A large amount of data and other information on water is accessible via WISE, the water information system for Europe, which is hosted by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen.

Context

The central element of European water policy is a Directive for ‘Community action in the field of water policy’ (2000/60/EC) - often referred to as the Water Framework Directive (WFD) – which aims to achieve a good ecological and chemical status of European waters by 2015. In this respect, the Directive focuses on water management at the level of (in most cases transboundary) hydrological catchments (river basins). An important step in the course of the implementation of this legislation involved establishing river basin management plans in 2010.

A study on water saving potential conducted for the European Commission estimated that water use efficiency could be increased by nearly 40 % through technological improvements alone and that changes in human behaviour or production patterns could lead to further savings. In a scenario without changes in practices, it was estimated that water use by the public, industry and agriculture would increase by 16 % by 2030. Conversely, the use of water saving technologies and irrigation management in the industrial and agricultural sectors could reduce excesses by as much as 43 %, while water efficiency measures could decrease water wastage by up to a third.

In a Communication addressing ‘water scarcity and droughts’ (COM(2007) 414), the European Commission identified an initial set of policy options to be taken at European, national and regional levels to address water scarcity within the EU. This set of proposed policies aims to move the EU towards a water-efficient and water-saving economy, as both the quality and availability of water are of major concern in many regions.

A major step forward in efforts to reduce pollutants discharged into the environment with wastewater was achieved by implementing legislation on ‘urban wastewater treatment’ (Directive 1991/271/EC). The pollution of rivers, lakes and groundwater and water quality is affected by human activities such as industrial production, household discharges, or arable farming; a report (COM(2007) 120) on ‘the protection of waters against pollution by nitrates from agricultural sources’ was issued in March 2007.

Another aspect of water quality relates to coastal bathing waters. The European Commission and the EEA present an annual bathing water report – the latest of these covers information for 2010 and shows that 92.1 % of Europe’s coastal bathing waters and 90.2 % of its inland bathing waters met the minimum water quality standards. It is anticipated that legislation concerning the ‘management of bathing water quality’ (Directive 2006/7/EC) will provide for a more proactive approach to informing the public about water quality; it was transposed into national law in 2008 but Member States have until December 2014 to implement it.

An increase of variability in weather patterns and catastrophic floods (such as those along the Danube and Elbe in 2002) prompted a review of flood risk management. This process culminated in a Directive (2007/60/EC) of the European Parliament and Council on ‘the assessment and management of flood risks’, which aims to reduce and manage risks to human health, the environment, cultural heritage, and economic activity.

Further Eurostat information

Publications

Main tables

Water (t_env_wat)

Database

Water (env_wat)

Methodology/Metadata

ESMS metadata file (env_wat_esms)

Source data for tables and figures (MS Excel)

Other information

External links

See also

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