1. Mapping of current and projected
Pan-European water withdrawals
Ine Vandecasteele, Alessandra Bianchi1,
Sarah Mubareka1, Arie De Roo1, Peter
Burek1, Faycal Bouraoui1, Carlo Lavalle1,
Okke Batelaan2
1
IES, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
2
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

2. Contents
AIM – Why map withdrawals?
Methodology
- Models used (Water Supply & Demand)
- Data Availability
- Sectorial withdrawals & consumption
- Freshwater availability
Water exploitation Index
Conclusions & Discussion
Enough water??

3. AIM - Why map water withdrawals??
significant technological improvements over the last few decades
 per capita withdrawals actually decreasing in several EU countries
BUT.. water scarcity remains a problem in southern Europe…
…and water quality is a major issue for most of Europe..
Monitoring and mapping
water withdrawals are the
first steps in correctly
managing them..
**Results of the study were used
in “The Blueprint to Safeguard
Europe’s Water Resources –
Communication from the
Commission (COM(2012)673”

4. AIM - Why map water withdrawals??
•To understand the temporal and spatial trends in actual withdrawal and consumption per
sector and their driving forces
•To highlight regions where such pressures lead to unsustainably high total water consumption
Sectors covered: Public
Industry
(Manufacturing, Energy Production)
Agriculture
(Irrigation, Livestock)
Fig. Worldmapper: Sectorial water use expressed as relative country areas

5. Models used
DEMAND SUPPLY
Allocation of water withdrawals Estimation of freshwater availability
EUClueScanner LISFLOOD
Land use model (forecasting) Hydrological model (forecasting)
using several drivers (eg. macro-economic, adapted to simulate longer periods
population, agricultural policies) & impact of land use changes
Van Der Knijff, J. M., Younis, J. and De Roo, A. P. J. (2010) LISFLOOD: a GIS-based distributed
Lavalle C., Baranzelli C., Batista e Silva F., Mubareka S., Rocha Gomes C., Koomen E., Hilferink M. (2011). A model for river basin scale water balance and flood simulation, International Journal of
high resolution land use/cover modelling framework for Europe. ICCSA 2011, Part I, LNCS 6782, pp. 60–75. Geographical Information Science, Vol. 24, No.2, 189-212.

6. Data Availability
2006 withdrawal statistics used
= country-level annual average freshwater abstraction by sector 2005-2007
OECD/EUROSTAT Joint Questionnaire on Inland Water
= where incomplete or missing 2003-2007 average annual withdrawal
FAO AQUASTAT
100%
90%
80%
70%
60% AGRICULTURE
50% ENERGY
INDUSTRY
40%
PUBLIC
30%
20%
10%
0%
Northern Central/East Western Southern
Collection of regional (NUTS or river basin level) statistics
So far 17 EU countries covered

7. Public water withdrawals
• Withdrawals for use in the municipal water supply
• assumed to be used by residents and tourists in urban areas
• Country-level statistics disaggregated to combined
population & tourism density maps.
Fig. Population density 2006.
Fig. Tourism density August 2006 (left), January 2006 (right) Source: Batista et al., 2012

8. Public water withdrawals 2006
Monthly maps of weighted number of users per pixel:
*Assuming tourists to have higher water use per capita (ratio 300/160, Gössling et al., 2012)
User density = (P – To) + 300/160 *(Ti)
P population density (annual)
To nr. nights spent abroad by residents (quarterly)
Ti nr. nights spent by tourists (monthly)
Final map (disaggregation of country-level withdrawals):
PWWi = PWWc * User densityi / ∑I User densityi
PWW public water withdrawal
i each pixel within a country
c each country
Fig. Public water withdrawals 2006, 5 km, in mm/year

9. Public water withdrawals 2030
public withdrawals per capita kept constant
•population projections - EUROSTAT
•annual tourism growth factor – World Tourism
Organisation projections 2020
•projected land use maps - EUClueScanner100 model
Netherlands
130
Poland
120 Finland
Sweden
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
m
w
p
n
d
h
b
u
P
3
e
a
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
c
s
r
t
i
l
Year
Fig. Trends in public water withdrawals 1970 - 2005
Fig. Change in public water withdrawals between 2006 - 2030

10. Industrial water withdrawals
• Withdrawals for use in manufacturing
• Assumed to be exclusively in industrial areas
Industrial water withdrawals were disaggregated
to the following land use classes:
•industry and commercial units,
•mineral extraction sites,
•port areas, airports
Fig. Industrial Water withdrawals, 5km, 2006, in mm/year.

11. Industrial water withdrawals 2030
Projection of withdrawals to 2030
Driving factor: Gross Value Added for industry
(General Equilibrium Model for Economy –
Energy – Environment, GEM-E3, UAthens)
*Land use projected to 2030
“efficiency factor” (-1.69 %/yr) based on historical trend
to account for technological improvements
Country change factor (%/yr) = Δ GVA for industry (%/yr)
– efficiency factor (%/yr)
Fig. Change in industrial water withdrawals for 2006 – 2030.

12. Energy water withdrawals
• Withdrawals for use in cooling
• Assumed to be used exclusively in electricity production
Disaggregated to thermal power stations
– selected from the European Pollutant
Release and Transfer Register data base,
E-PRTR, 2011
Fig. Energy water withdrawals for 2006, 5 km, in mm/yr

13. Energy water withdrawals 2030
Driving factor: Energy consumption (Prospective Outlook
on Long-term Energy Systems, POLES, IPTS, JRC)
“efficiency factor” (-1.33 %/yr) based on historical trend to
account for technological improvements
Country change factor (%/yr) = Δ energy consumption (%/yr)
– efficiency factor (%/yr)
Fig. Change in energy withdrawals for 2006 – 2030

14. Livestock water withdrawals
based on:
-spatial distribution livestock: FAO livestock density maps (FAO,
2012), refined with actual livestock figures for 2005 (CAPRI, 2012)
-specific water requirements per livestock type (varied with
temperature to give daily maps of withdrawals; figures based on
literature study)
Highest withdrawals in Denmark, Belgium, the
Netherlands, northern Italy, northeast Spain
Fig. Annual average livestock water withdrawals 2006, 5 km, in mm/year.

15. Irrigation water withdrawals
Based on crop growth, soil water, the irrigated areas map
(Wriedt et al., 2008) and the EPIC nutrient model
Water requirements estimated assuming unlimited irrigation.
2030 - map updated using projected land use
Highest withdrawals in southern Europe,
Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, some parts
of Eastern Europe.
Fig. Irrigation water withdrawals 2006, 10km, in mm/year.

16. Sectorial water consumption
Consumption = Withdrawal – return flow
Consumption – water removed from the direct environment through
evapotranspiration, conversion into a product or
otherwise.
Return flow - remaining water returned to the environment either directly, or after
use, so having an altered quality level.
For each sector we assumed a percentage of the total withdrawals to be fully consumed.
These average values were then used to compute maps of water consumption.
Table. Actual estimated sectorial consumption of water (UN WWDR, 2009 & expert opinion).
Water withdrawal sector Water consumption from literature (%) Assumed water consumption (%)
Public 10-20 20
Industry 5-10 15
Energy 1-2 2.5
Irrigation 50-60 (surface); 90 (localised) 75
Livestock - 15

17. Freshwater Availability
Annual New Freshwater available
Average from 1990-2010 based on observed
meteorological data (MARS + EFAS dataset,
IES, JRC) as fed into LISFLOOD model
Fig. The average amount of freshwater for each water region (mm per year)

18. Water Exploitation Index
The ratio total withdrawals : total water availability indicates the extent
to which the water resources in each river basin are exploited.
**This Water Exploitation Index (WEI) (EEA, 2010) is calculated here at
sub-catchment level for 2006 & 2030.
The Water Exploitation Index (WEI) for total abstracted (WEIabs), & total consumed water (WEIcns)
were calculated using LISQUAL as:
WEIabs = abstraction / (external inflow + internal flow)
WEIcns = (abstraction – return flow) / (external inflow + internal flow)
internal flow = net generated water (rainfall – evapotranspiration + snowmelt);
external inflow = inflow from upstream areas;
abstraction = total water abstraction;
return flow = water abstraction minus water consumption.

19. Water Exploitation Index
European Environmental Agency (EEA, 2010)
 threshold defining a region as being “water scarce” = WEIabs of 20%;
“severe scarcity” = WEIabs > 40%.
Fig. The WEIabs per sub-catchment for 2006 (left) and 2030 (right).

20. CONCLUSIONS & DISCUSSION
General trend of increasing exploitation of water resources in almost all catchments.
WEI highlighted the regions currently experiencing high water stress:
“severe scarcity” = WEIabs > 40% increasing 2006-30
in south, central Spain, Italy, Germany, Eastern Europe
Water use sector Surface water (%) Groundwater (%)
Groundwater exploitation Public 40 60
Industry 72 28
Energy 93 7
Agriculture 60 40
Total 69 31
Water Quality • High consumption of water
• Return of water with degraded quality
• Altered temperature (eg. cooling water)

21. CONCLUSIONS & DISCUSSION
More work to do…
•Development of the “efficiency factor” to better reflect the trends in technological
improvements limiting water use
•Improvement of industrial withdrawal maps to take into account variations in water use
intensity of sectors (eg. food, textile, paper & pulp..)
•Availability of water should affect amount actually withdrawn, ie. by introduction of a ‘water
price’ which limits withdrawals and varies with availability
•Losses due to leakages in the distribution network need to be taken into account: eg. Bulgaria
(24%), Greece (16%), Malta (19%), UK (13%), EU27 average of 7.7%

22. Recommendations
Sustainable use of water involves both the reduction of
Withdrawals - technological improvements: reduction of leakages and evaporation in the
distribution system, increasing connectivity of the population
and consumption of water – public awareness, re-use of water of sufficient quality, water pricing,
technological improvements (eg. reduce actual amount of water
needed in production).
** This study highlights the need for further research, public awareness, and policy attention for
all regions, especially in those already experiencing unsustainable water withdrawals and
consumption, and directly related to that, increasing water scarcity.

23. THANK YOU!!