INTEGRATION 4 WATER

TEG 2.1: Managing water demand in the context of multiple objectives (water for people, industry, agriculture, ecosystems)

Water governance research should provide analyses of decision structures supporting prioritization based upon objective data, as well as systems for education, training, information and involvement of the public at all levels, and further development of socio-economic incentive systems for water resources management.
Research in resource prioritization must provide instruments for quantitative assessment and ranking of water demands and resources to be used in resource allocation (e.g. in transboundary catchments), as well as for quantification of the effects (e.g. economic and technical) of measures used in water management (e.g. towards floods and droughts). The associated uncertainties must be quantified.
Research should include improvement of the understanding and development of the methods to design of context specific system solutions to be used in water management focusing upon alleviating water scarcity and the consequences of extreme events as e.g. floods and droughts. Emphasis should be upon methods for reducing groundwater overexploitation (e.g. island groundwater), increasing the water resources available for water supply purposes (e.g. water reuse, non-conventional water resources, infrastructure improvement), predicting the effects of extreme events (e.g. floods and droughts) and enabling multiple purpose usage of waters (e.g. water reservoir management, river management).

The research must provide instruments for water governance, resource prioritization and optimization of resource utilisation emphasising both quantity and quality aspects of water resources management.

With water being both a key resource and a major source of problems, current resource management methods and tools fail mainly due to two major problem areas:

Unreasonable water use patterns and water resources management due to lack of awareness and knowledge of water as an unevenly distributed resource, lack of sufficient public involvement in decisions, lack of detailed and consistent legal implementation of general water regulation and lack of satisfactory transboundary and national decision rules.

Examples:

George Attard, Malta
The mean sea level aquifer systems provide substantial contributions to potable water extraction in dry areas of Europe including several of the NMS/ACC. The major groundwater bodies are under heavy abstraction such that their status is seriously threatened by localised seawater intrusion. If further deterioration occurs, it would mean losing a resource that under optimum conditions could store large quantities of high quality water, and which once lost would be difficult to restore. Furthermore, many groundwater bodies at islands in dry areas are at risk of failing to meet the objectives of the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

János Fehér, Hungary
There is a tendency in most NMS/ACC to privatize (partially or fully) water works. The privatization, in most cases, results in continuous tariff increases. The population, in general, has hardly any means to compensate tariff increases, but just only decrease their water consumption. There is lack of incentives for the industry to develop / produce more efficient water saving household appliances (WCs, showers, washing machines, dish-washers, etc) to help the customers saving water. Research is needed to elaborate methodologies for efficient regulations to stimulate water saving technological development of the industry and other economic sectors as well.

Bogdan Popa, Romania
The water management infrastructure is determining current practices in water management, but it is also pre-determining the future decisions and directions taken in this sector. The water management infrastructure includes all assets used in the different sectors of water management (i.e. flood and drought management, water resource development, water supply and waste water collection and treatment, erosion control). The characteristics of the infrastructure that could be defined are the following: (i) the value of the assets is high, as well as the importance for other uses, (ii) the operation and maintenance costs are high, (iii) the life cycle of the infrastructure is expected to be very long, (iv) the inadequate management of this infrastructure means a loss of important water resources (e.g. leaks) as well as loss of other resources (e.g. increased costs), and (v) in general it is taken for granted. In the NMS/ACC, the situation regarding the water infrastructure management is insufficient resulting in losses, inadequate performance of flood prevention measures and similar.

Balanced allocation of resources for water services in multipurpose regimes

Lack of means and methods applicable at different levels to prioritize and satisfy demands of different sectors (e.g. agriculture versus tourism), purposes (e.g. human consumption versus ecological needs), considerations (e.g. flooding versus drought), geographical units (e.g. transboundary problems or coastal aquifers) and evaluation of measures (e.g. cost efficiency, infrastructure optimization, public acceptance).

Examples:

Marzena Osuch, Poland
In many European countries, the border areas are often considered as regions deserving special consideration because of not only the social and cultural differences between adjusting countries but also inadequate ability of dealing with environmental problems. Such problems are by their very nature cross-border problems. For example, states rarely respect the hydrological and hydrogeological limits of a catchment divided into several countries. Moreover, usually the water body, belonging to a few countries, is managed by local authorities in their own way, hardly respecting neighbours’ interests, historical roots, and legislative rules. The different approaches to utilization of the catchment may result in catastrophic effects. Additionally, hydrological and hydrogeological modelling of transboundary catchments is challenging because of data scarcity. Often measuring gauges are sparsely and unevenly distributed which results in inconsistence of the data acquired on both sides of the border. Usually the underlying materials (e.g. maps, databases, time series etc) consider only the area within the state borders and do not much with data from the other side of the border.

Elena Bojilova, Bulgaria
In Bulgaria and the Balkan, the long lasting drought period was registered from 1982 up to the beginning of the new century. During this drought period, a number of severe flood events also took place (e.g. 1984, 1990, 1991, 1996, 1998). Now, it is necessary to learn to cope with more frequent and severe extreme events in regimes of poor water management. The quantitative investigations of the water resources in Bulgaria during the drought period are performed nationally, but extreme events can not be effectively managed in a single way. As a future need, the long-term management of water resources in integrated manner is needed. The creation of real systems for mitigation, warning and integrated management of the floods and drought are strongly necessary, in particular for the NMS/ACC.

Elisabeta Oprisan, Romania
According to the WFD, we need to achieve good status of surface and groundwater systems that means in the same time consider the needs of the aquatic ecosystems and the needs for human activities. With the populations growing and the agricultural and industrial needs constantly increasing, the pressure from the human water supply (including activities such as hydro electrical plants) upon aquatic ecosystems is increasing. In order to address this, we don’t know exactly what is the optimum or the minimum amount of water for aquatic ecosystems survival, and the method available are referring only to a few species (e.g. salmon). There is therefore an urgent need for developing new methods for the balancing the water demand (and supply) people, industry, agriculture, zootechnology, aquaculture, tourism and aquatic ecosystems.

George Attard, Malta
In many dry areas of the EU including several of the NMS/ACC, the annual potential evapo-transpiration is twice the annual precipitation. Rainfall is seasonal (mostly as October showers) and provides moisture when demand by plants is low. No natural moisture is present at times of high demand by plants. The heavy early rains very often exceed the soil water holding capacity, discharging excess water. Rain water that falls in urban areas is also discharged having a combined cumulative effect resulting in flash floods, soil erosion and a loss of potentially good quality water into the sea. Rain water harvesting is essential to serve as supplementary water for agriculture and also to lessen the surface run off water that leads to soil erosion, but should be developed to an efficient technology.

Primoz Banovec, Slovenia
The natural retention volumes are not that widely recognized as a water resource, even though retention volumes are a key resource that should be managed in order to prevent floods and droughts. While man-made retention volumes are usually carefully managed, the natural retention volumes are subject to significant pressure from different human activities (e.g. urbanization, traffic, other land use). Loss of this resource is usually compensated by investments in man-made retention reservoirs and other flood management construction and non-construction measures. With the research, the status of the non man-made retention volumes should be analysed and models for efficient management of this resource proposed.

A range of research projects has been and are being conducted under FP5 and FP6, but these do not cover the integrated, multipurpose and multilevel approach suggested here addressing specific NMS/ACS problems. Still, examples of projects (EU and non-EU) and tools are listed below.
A few integrated water management systems can be mentioned that can address parts of the issues raised:

The proposed project is supporting theme 6 of the FP7 on environment, Activity II on Sustainable Management of Resources, conservation and sustainable management of natural and man-made resources.
Furthermore, the project is supporting primarily priority 1 - Balancing Demand and Supply, but also priority 2 - Ensuring Appropriate Quality and Security of Water Supply and priority 3 - Reducing Negative Environmental Impacts of the WSSTP. The project will provide integrating tools for 5 of the 6 suggested pilot actions (coastal, urban, agricultural areas, industries, extreme events).

Based upon the problems identified and the solutions required, the research needs above have been identified to cover the gaps.

The problems to be solved were identified in a NMS/ACC forum and the project should be firmly anchored in the NMS/ACC research community. Still, the problems addressed are found all over Europe and the project results should thus be tailored for use at the European scale. The European added value of the project is to provide means to improve the quality of life and reduce the conflicts over the water resource and uses in Europe. The development of improved water management strategies is in support of implementing the matrix of EU directives on this area (e.g.: the WFD, Nitrate Directive, as well as emerging flood, groundwater and drinking water directives).
The project will support institutional and capacity building within the water management sector in the NMS/ACC, in particular through the water governance research and synergistic collaboration.
Socio-economic benefits will be significant due to the reduction of investments for water services through improved technology, reduction of hidden costs and sharing of infrastructure elements. Providing access to hitherto unused water resources will support economic development in areas of water scarcity.