www.aquamedia.at: Austria`s Water Resources are Larger than Assumed!
The study prepared by Joanneum Research for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Environment, and Water Management (BMLFUW) is a valuable foundation for sustainable water management and helps to re-establish a factual basis for discussion.
Austria is in an excellent position regarding the quantity of its water resources. The combination of the legal framework conditions laid down in the water law with the economic incentive funding already contributed and the continuing upgrading of an area-wide supply and treatment succeeded in safeguarding a high water quality in the Alpine Republic. Thus, for example in the years 1993 to 2000 almost 8 billion EUR were invested in drinking water protection and in keeping the waters clean!
Today, 99 % of the domestic population can be supplied with spring and groundwater; moreover, the share of treated surface water of 1 % is very small compared with many other European states. 87 % of the population are connected to public water supply. In 81 % of our running waters the quality is at least class II and all the Austrian lakes have bathing water quality.
Also in the future the water supplies will be considerably larger than the requirement of the domestic population, the economy, agriculture, but also nature. This was the satisfying result of the recently published study "Assessment of the sustainably usable spring water resources in the Austrian Alpine region". In an average year Austria could use the sixfold amount of its current drinking water consumption without negatively influencing this favourable situation. However, the regions with an additional potential are regionally unevenly distributed. While there is, for example, hardly any additionally usable water in the catchment of the Vienna High Spring Water Pipelines, there is plenty of white gold resources in other regions of Styria, but also in Tyrol and Carinthia.
Counting on nature
The author of the study, Univ. Prof. Dr. Hans Zojer (Research Association Joanneum Research) to the approach of the investigation: "Methodologically, our study starts out from the definition of ′available groundwater resource′ in the EU Water Framework Directive. Thus, as a starting basis, all quality objectives were taken into consideration, which are necessary for safeguarding the good ecological status of waters and of terrestrial ecosystems connected to them. The ecological criteria applied count on the fact that the natural fluctuations in the run-off regime are sustained - in the very sense of sustainability - and that no conditions are triggered that are not found in nature as such."
The investigation centers on the sustainably usable resources of carstic and fissured rock groundwater contained in the Alpine hard rock, and determined the total annual groundwater recharge in the project area Alpine Region of 25.5 billion m3. The share usable without harming the aquatic flora and fauna amounts to 4.7 billion m3 in a normal year. The present amount of water used (0.45 billion m3/year) and the update of the additional future water requirement (0.2 billion m3/year) in the project area had to be deducted from the above amount.
Porous groundwater resources in the area of investigation were not included in the study. Although the study did not include this sector, it nevertheless ascertained that porous groundwaters constitute an additional water reserve for Austria that should not be underestimated. In the same way the study did not consider the water potential of the Bohemian Mass and the peripheral region of the Pannonian Basin since they are not situated in the Alpine region.
Water supplies insured
Nevertheless, the authors drew the following conclusions: the present and prospect future water requirement in the Austrian Alpine region and its available spring water resources amount to only 1.8, or rather 2.3 percent of the average groundwater recharge. This confirms on the one hand that domestic total consumption with regard to ecological considerations, i.e. without endangering the water cycle, can easily be covered in the future. On the other hand, an additional spring water quantity of slightly more than 4 billion m3 per year (130.000 l/s) could be made available in average years. This corresponds to the sixfold amount of the present total Austrian drinking water consumption. But even during dry years, there still would be sufficient spring water available to extract further 0.65 billion m3 or 20,600 l/s for new intended purposes.
Federal Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Water Management
susanne.brandstetter@bmlfuw.gv.at