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Water exploitation index plus (WEI+) in European river sub-basins, summer 2015

Figure Created 11 Mar 2022 Published 22 Mar 2022 Last modified 14 Mar 2022
1 min read
WEI+ illustrates the percentage of water use versus water available in the respective subbasin

European data

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Percentage

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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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Additional information

Assessments of the sustainability of water abstraction at the European level remain limited by data availability and the approach to the interpretation of water returns. This may lead to large differences in the European WEI compared with national data sets. An example of this occurs in the south-western sub-basin of France along the Atlantic coast, an important maize production area. There, the national estimate of the WEI is around 50% because it assumes no water returns from agriculture, whereas the European estimate, which is based on a 31% returns ratio from agriculture, is below 10%.

Related content

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    
Data Waterbase - Water Quantity Waterbase is the generic name given to the EEA's databases on the status and quality of Europe's rivers, lakes, groundwater bodies and transitional, coastal and marine waters, on the quantity of Europe's water resources, and on the emissions to surface waters from point and diffuse sources of pollution.
Data Waterbase - UWWTD: Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive – reported data Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive concerns the collection, treatment and discharge of urban waste water and the treatment and discharge of waste water from certain industrial sectors. The objective of the Directive is to protect the environment from the adverse effects of the above mentioned waste water discharges.
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. It is organised from a layer of 181,071 “functional elementary catchments (FECs)” which average size is ~62 km2, fully connected with explicit identifier (ID) relationships and upstream area. Catchments are grouped as sub-basins, river basin districts (actual and functional to meet hydrographical continuity). The catchments are as well organised according to their sea shore of emptying to meet Marine Strategy delineations. Catchments are drained by 1,348,163 river segments, sorted as “main drains” (connecting together the FECs) and secondary drains (internal to a FEC). river segments mimic the natural drainage, however fulfilling the topological constraint of “0,1 or 2 upstreams, single or 0 downstream”. Each segment is populated with distance to the sea, to ease further processing. They are connected to elementary catchments and nodes documented with altitude. Segments are as well documented with a “dummy river code”, fully populated that earmark each segment with the most distant to the outlet in each drainage basin and, everywhere this has been possible, with a “true river” ID based on river naming. A layer of lakes and dams has been elaborated. Lakes polygons (70,847) are taken from Corine Land cover , WFD Art. 13 and in some cases, from CCM “water layer”. Lakes inlets and outlets are set with the segment ID and where relevant, the dams making the lake is documented. All lakes which depths and volume was found have been updated. Version 1.0 here presented still contain some topological errors (e.g. incorrect segment branching), because inaccurate geometry. They are noted and a correction procedure is underway.

Used in publications

Publication Europe’s groundwater – a key resource under pressure Groundwater, making the invisible visible is the World Water Day theme for 22nd March 2022. Groundwater stores almost 1/3 of global total freshwater resources, but pollution may prevent its use. In the EU, groundwater supplies 65 % of drinking water and 25 % of the water for agricultural irrigation. Groundwater pollution is a serious threat to drinking water quality. Once polluted, recovery is not easily achieved because there is no fast way to remove pollutants. This also means that polluting substances can accumulate. Furthermore, groundwater resources are under increasing pressure from water abstraction and climate change. In the EU, 24% of the total groundwater body area was reported in poor chemical status and 9 % in poor quantitative status according to Water Framework Directive 2nd River Basin Management reports in 2016. This briefing provides an overview on the state of the art with groundwater in the EU as contribution to the celebration of the World Water Day in 2022.

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For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/water-exploitation-index-plus-wei-1 or scan the QR code.

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