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Seasonal water scarcity conditions across Europe, measured using the water exploitation index plus (WEI+) for river basin districts, 2015

Figure Created 02 Nov 2021 Published 27 Jan 2022 Last modified 28 Mar 2022
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This page was archived on 28 Mar 2022 with reason: Other (New version data-and-maps/figures/seasonal-water-exploitation-index-plus-3 was published)
This map illustrates water stress conditions across Europe, where water use is displayed as a percentage of total water available.

European data

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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 (https://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright). Copyright holder: European Environment Agency (EEA).
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Based on data

External Data Spec E-OBS gridded dataset E-OBS gridded version of the ECA dataset (netCDF) with daily temperature, precipitation and pressure fields The ECA dataset contains series of daily observations at meteorological stations throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. Temperature data from E-OBS (KNMI) the ENSEMBLE FP6 project    
External Data Spec LISFLOOD. Distributed Water Balance and Flood Simulation Model (Dataset URL is not available)
Data European catchments and Rivers network system (Ecrins) Version 1, Jun. 2012 - Ecrins is acronym for European catchments and Rivers network system. It is a geographical information system of the European hydrographical systems with a full topological information. Ecrins is a composite system made from the CCM developed by the JRC, Corine land Cover, WFD reporting elements, etc.

Interactive maps

GIS Map Application Water exploitation index plus (WEI+) for river basin districts (1990-2015) This interactive map gives a European overview of water stress conditions. The information presented may deviate from that available in the EEA member countries and cooperating countries, particularly for those countries where data availability is insufficient in the WISE SoE - Water quantity database (WISE 3). Data on hydro-climatic variables were aggregated from a daily to a monthly scale. Water abstraction data were taken from WISE 3 (annual resolution at the national scale), although there are large gaps in the time series. Therefore, intensive gap filling was performed on water abstraction data and proxies were used to disaggregate the data from the national to the sub-basin scale. Information on water use was mainly modelled on the UWWTP capacities, the E-PRTR database and the Eurostat Population change dataset (online data code [demo_gind]) among others. See the methodology chapter for further explanation of gap filling, and spatial and temporal disaggregation, and the data uncertainties chapter for current data availability. This interactive map allows users to explore changes over time in water abstraction by source, water use by sector and water stress level at sub-basin or river basin scale. The WEI+ has been estimated as the quarterly average per river basin district for the years 1990-2015, as defined in the European catchments and rivers network system (ECRINS). The ECRINS delineation of river basin districts differs slightly from that defined by Member States under the Water Framework Directive. The Ecrins delineation is used instead of the WFD because it contains geospatial information on Europe’s hydrographical systems with full topological information enabling flow estimation between upstream and downstream basins, as well as integration of economic data collected at NUTS or country level. In addition to using the WISE SoE - Water quantity database, comprehensive manual data collection was performed by accessing all open sources (Eurostat, OECD, FAO), including national statistical offices of the countries. This was done because of the temporal and spatial gaps in the data on water abstraction. Moreover, a large part of the stream flow data from LISFLOOD has also been substantially updated by the Directorate-General Joint Research Centre. Similarly, a comprehensive update with climatic parameters has been performed by the EEA based on the E-OBS dataset. Therefore, the time series of the WEI+ presented in the current version might be slightly different for some basins compared with the previous version.

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For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/seasonal-water-exploitation-index-plus-2 or scan the QR code.

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