Water Exploitation Index (WEI)

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Created : Nov 12, 2009 Published : Jan 09, 2009 Last modified : Nov 29, 2012 11:39 AM

Better information will help us adapt The Water Exploitation Index (WEI) is a good example of the type of information needed to give an overview of the scale and location of the problems facing us

This is the latest published version. .

http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/water-exploitation-index-wei-2/signals-cc-adaptation-fig2.eps/image_original

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Last upload:

30 Oct 2008

Dynamic

Temporal coverage:

1990

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Geographical coverage:

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Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Malta Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom

Rights:

EEA standard re-use policy: unless otherwise indicated, re-use of content on the EEA website for commercial or non-commercial purposes is permitted free of charge, provided that the source is acknowledged (http://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright). Copyright holder: European Environment Agency (EEA).

Owners:

European Environment Agency (EEA)

Permalink to this version: 32D33004-50B5-439F-98A2-53EF476B26C1
Permalink to latest version: 8B86C552-8189-468B-9B73-FC3ADAE5B116

Figure type:

Graph

Additional information

In simple terms, the index shows available water resources in a country or region compared to the amount of water used. An index of over 20 % usually indicates water scarcity. As the graph shows, nine countries are considered;water stressed: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malta, Spain, and the United Kingdom (England and Wales). WEI data are available for England and show that the South East and London are especially stressed. This level of information is key in terms of effective adaptation to climate change. By understanding how much water is available in a region, where it is coming from and who uses it, we will be able to build effective local strategies to adapt to climate change.