Post a comment on the text below

Measures and management challenges

Water stress is caused when demand is relatively high and abstractions take up a significant share of annually renewable freshwater resources or even exceed annual water capacity with withdrawals from non-renewable reserves. In this sense, water scarcity and stress is a complex phenomenon which entails multiple causes that are often interconnected. Thus, an integrated water management approach appears most suited to attain the European and Sustainable Development Goals for water. This includes coherent and consistent policy instruments, education, economic tools, structural interventions where needed, and recourse to new technologies among others. At the moment, water scarcity and droughts policies are mostly legislated and implemented at national level. Several measures are used to address the adverse impacts of water abstractions and water scarcity. These can be roughly divided into demand-side and supply-side measures.

Various policies and measures put an emphasis on managing water demand (demand-side measures). These include disincentivising pricing mechanisms, enhanced awareness-raising, advanced metering, subsidies, and fiscal incentives. For instance, the introduction of water metering mixed with pricing and non-pricing instruments has already lowered the water consumption per capita in large parts of Europe (Dige et al. 2017). In some countries, however, especially in Southern Europe, efforts to address over-abstraction and to secure long-term sustainability remain inadequate (Trémolet et al. 2019). Permit and licensing mechanisms have not been fully effective in averting illegal abstraction and over-abstraction in certain European regions (Ross, 2016).

Supply-side measures include the creation of reservoirs, rainwater harvesting, inter-basin water transfers, desalination and water reuse. Some supply-side measures present their own challenges, e.g. by causing physical alterations in the water environment. Some other supply-side measures do not structurally impact water per se, but rather aim at its infrastructure thereof. These include leakage detection and improvement of irrigation techniques. The common agricultural policy of the EU (CAP) supports farmers to invest in water saving irrigation infrastructures and techniques. At the same time, water efficiency should be promoted across economic sectors in an integrated manner. Overall, further evidence-based exchange is needed among experts and countries on the kind of water supply-side options which are more sustainable and need further promotion.

All in all, both demand and supply-side measures have their advantages and shortcomings.  Relying on one type of measures only, is not enough to achieve environmental objectives. Instead, a combination of both sets is desirable to tackle the impacts of water abstractions and scarcity from a consistent and long-term perspective. Techniques may range from water pricing incentives to the reduction of network leakages rates for agricultural businesses (Trémolet 2019).

Strategic planning instruments have also been in use in European countries, such as drought management plans in Spain. These enable to plan, monitor, and mitigate water scarcity situations and enhance decision-making during periods of drought (Stein et al. 2016, 2020; EC 2007).

Preventive actions and recovery policies should be informed by identifying measures based on an ecosystem-based management approach (EEA forthcoming). This presupposes that ecosystemic preservation is just another goal to be pursued alongside production, employment and other policy targets, which have serious implications for water ecosystems in the EU. Integrated water management and nexus approaches to managing the complex system of water-food-energy-environment are becoming increasingly implemented to ensure cross-compliant policy responses to water abstraction challenges among others (ibid.). Both approaches have in common that they take into account environmental as well as sectoral needs (EEA 2018a).