Is water scarce in the EU?

With temperatures rising every year, droughts becoming more frequent, and an increasing pressure on water resources, issues related to water exploitation and scarcity are becoming increasingly important. 

The water exploitation index plus (WEI+) helps understanding the level of water scarcity by measuring total water consumption as a percentage of the renewable freshwater resources available for a given territory and period. Values above 20% are generally considered a sign of water scarcity, and values greater than 40% indicate severe water scarcity.

In 2022, the EU WEI+ was 5.8%, an increase of 0.9 percentage points (pp) since 2000. It was the highest value since this data collection started in 2000.  

Among the EU countries, Cyprus registered 71.0%, indicating that freshwater resources use was unsustainable. In 2000, the WEI+ in this EU country was already 59.5%.  

Malta and Romania had values of 34.1% and 21.0% in 2022. Greece, Portugal and Spain with 13.8%,10.1% and 8.8% respectively, were below the threshold of 20%, but still above most EU countries. Moreover, regional differences and the severity of water scarcity during the summer months are not visible in these annual national average values. In particular in southern Europe, water scarcity can be a severe issue in spring and summer, aggravated by high pressure on water resources through agricultural needs, public water supply and tourism.

Source dataset: sdg_06_60, data provider: European Environment Agency (EEA)

Latvia, Croatia, Sweden, Slovakia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Finland and Luxembourg all recorded values of the WEI+ index under 1%, indicating they were not under water stress conditions.

This news article marks World Water Day, celebrated on 22 March. 
 

For more information

• Statistics Explained article on SDG 6 - clean water and sanitation 
• Thematic section on Sustainable development goals
• Sustainable development in the European Union – Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context – 2024 edition 
• UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
• Water scarcity conditions in Europe 
• Water resources across Europe — confronting water stress: an updated assessment
• Water framework directive 

Methodological notes

• Data for Italy not available.
• The WEI+ indicator is produced by the European Environment Agency based on modelling data from the Water Information System for Europe State of the Environment (WISE SoE) – water quantity database (WISE 3) and other open sources (Eurostat, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and including gap filling methods. Eurostat re-publishes this indicator as part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals indicators.
• Annual calculations of the WEI+ at national level do not reflect uneven spatial and seasonal distribution of resources and may therefore mask water stress which occurs on a seasonal or regional basis.

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