2.1 Definition – Water abstraction from groundwater and surface water for sectors i.e. agriculture, manufacturing, mining, quarryingand construction, cooling water for electricity generation and for manufacturing industry and public water supply.
The indicator is taking into account gross volume of water abstraction including losses and leakages, and excluding water returns from the economy back to the environment.
2.3 Policy/environmental relevance
The European Union Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) sets the purpose of the Directive –inter alia- as (Article 1, b) promoting sustainable water use based on a long-term protection of available water resources.
The EU New Circular Economy Action Plan (2020) explicitly address explicitly the water stress and holds provisions for improving resource efficiency in the context of water resources management.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP aims at the production of affordable, safe and good quality food, implementing environmentally sustainable farming, which protects natural resources and landscapes, enhances biodiversity, addresses climate change risks and stimulates the growth of rural communities and economies. Inter alias, the CAP supports investments on water conservation, upgrades of irrigation infrastructure and training of farmers to improve irrigation techniques. This indicator provides information support to the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) of the CAP implementation, which is established by the European Commission. CMEF includes different sets of indicators on a range of agricultural issues, such as a set of impact indicators measuring the impact of policy interventions.
In addition, the European Green Deal (EC, 2019) has manifested the focus of the European Commission on decoupling economic growth from resource use, by moving to a clean, circular economy, where resources are used more efficiently and the pressures to the environment are decreased. The Farm to Fork strategy (EC, 2020), which focuses on making food systems more sustainable, is an integral part of the European Green Deal.
2.7 Methodology
Water abstraction is presented as million m3 of water abstracted by economic sector from surface and groundwater. Economic sectors are defined in line with the NACE classification which include the following sectors;
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing (NACE Section A)
- Mining and quarrying (NACE Section B)
- Manufacturing (NACE Section C)
- Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (NACE Section D)
- Water collection, treatment and supply (NACE Section E - Division 36)
- Construction (NACE Section F)
- Accommodation and food service activities (NACE Section I)
- Other economic activities (NACE Sections G, H and J to U).
For the simplification purposes, the economic sectors are aggregated to four major economic sectors; cooling water for electricity generation, agriculture, industry and public water supply following the below aggregation approach;
Cooling water for electricity generation cover the following economic sectors from the NACE
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (NACE Section D)
Manufacturing (NACE C) - Cooling
Agriculture;
Agriculture, forestry and fishing (NACE Section A)
Irrigation (Part of NACE Section A - Groups 01.1 to 01.3)
Aquaculture (NACE Section A - Class 03.22)
Public water supply;
Water collection, treatment and supply (NACE Section E - Division 36)
Accommodation and food service activities (NACE Section I)
Other economic activities (NACE Sections G, H and J to U).
Industry;
Mining and quarrying (NACE Section B)
Manufacturing (NACE Section C)
Construction (NACE Section F)
2.8 Data sources & providers
Volume of water abstraction by source and sectors (values in million m3)
Data source: EEA Waterbase - Water Quantity
Volume of annual freshwater abstraction by source and sector (values in million m3)
Data source: Eurostat - Annual freshwater abstraction by source and sector (env_wat_abs)
Volume of freshwater abstraction (values in million m3)
Data source: OECD - Freshwater abstraction
Population on 1 January (tps00001)
Data source: Eurostat- Population on 1 January (tps00001)
Population connected to public water supply [env_wat_pop]
Data source: Eurostat- Population connected to public water supply (env_wat_pop)
Production of electricity and derived heat by type of fuel [nrg_bal_peh]
Data source: Eurostat - Production of electricity and derived heat by type of fuel (nrg_bal_peh)
Production in industry - annual data [sts_inpr_a]
Data source: Eurostat - Production in industry - annual data (sts_inpr_a)
Water withdrawal by source and by sector
Data source: Aquastat
Water abstraction by Region, Water type and Abstraction category
Data source: Statistics Denmark
2.9 Geographic coverage – EU 27 and EIONET 38 member countries
2.10 Time coverage – 1990-2019
2.11 Frequency of dissemination – Once every two years
2.12 References
2.13 Accuracy and uncertainties
Methodology Uncertainties
Water abstraction for households and service sectors are embedded into Public water supply, and excluding self-supply (as no data available) which creates uncertainties for the actual pressure of these sectors.
Data sets uncertainty