International Resource Panel Water Footprint and Accounting Writing

International Resource Panel ‘Water Footprint and Accounting’ Writing Workshop 4 -6 April 2011 European Environment Agency (EEA) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Copenhagen, Denmark Water Accounts at the EEA Jean-Louis Weber Special Adviser on Economic Environnemental Accounting European Environment Agency jean-louis. weber@eea. europa. eu

Water accounts at the EEA • Support to EEA reporting activities on water use and state • Integration of the European information system on water (WISE, ECRINS) • Support to the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive/ WFD • Implementation of the UN-SEEA Water in Europe (altogether with Eurostat) • Development of ecosystem capital accounts in relation to the SEEA revision and in response to policy demands for natural resource and macro-economic instruments (GDP and Beyond, Resource Efficiency Strategy. . . )

Support the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive key aims: • expanding the scope of water protection to all waters, surface waters and groundwater • achieving "good status" for all waters by a set deadline • water management based on river basins • "combined approach" of emission limit values and quality standards • getting the prices right • getting the citizen involved more closely • streamlining legislation With a single system of water management: River basin management DGENV requests water accounts to support WFD reporting

Macro-economics: GDP growth and the need to account for natural resource use & ecosystem capital degradation Use of accessible Resource efficiency = sparing materials & energy (technology, consumption patterns) 12. 5 Mio km 3 4. 7 Mio km 3 freshwater resource (today 54%) Beyond GDP 2008 “Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi” report 2009 TEEB 2008 -2010 SEEA 2003 / rev. 2012 -13 Resource efficiency = ecological management of land, soil & water, ecosystem capital maintenance WAVES/ WB Partnership 2011 -2015

UN manual for environmental-economic accounting: SEEA 2003 Enlargement of the System of National Accounts Revision SEEA 2012/13 Impacts on ecosystem capacity of delivering services/benefits Part 1 Part 2 The SNA satellite accounts for the environment Ecosystem capital accounts expenditure, taxes, hybrid accounts, physical flows, sub-soil, energy, water, land, economic assets depletion Ecosystem stocks and quality, ecosystem services, benefits and maintenance costs… Negative feedbacks of ecosystem degradation on production and wellbeing RM HASSAN - UN The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (UN 2003) RANESA Workshop June 12 -16, 2005 Maputo

Ecosystem Services and Water in the draft Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) Source, CICES proposal, Roy Haines-Young and Marion Potschin, eds, EEA, 2010

Simplified ecosystem capital accounting circuit Non-sustainable use GDP & Adjustments: Real Net National Income Final Consumption at Full Price Non-paid costs still needed to remediate ecosystem degradation (€) Sustainable use Ecosystem degraded by over-use ES economic benefits (€) ES economic benefits (€) Healthy ecosystem ES economic benefits (€) Natural resources, Ecosystem capital ecosystem services ( j) Economy

Simplified ecosystem capital accounts • Physical accounts firstly, followed by valuation of restoration costs and benefits supported by main ecosystem services • All ecosystems: land/sea/atmosphere, and for land: urban, agriculture, forest, other natural land, inland water, and soil. • Focus on ecosystem degradation and sustainable services • Feasible NOW – keep it simple • Don’t miss important issues: need a good checklist • 6 indexes for 1 diagnosis: – 1 -Land // 2 -Biomass // 3 -Water // 4 -Biodiversity // 5 -Dependency from external inputs // 6 -Disease prevalence – Multi-criteria diagnosis (instead of mere additions) and quantification: the “ecosystem distress syndrome” approach combined with basic balances “fast tract implementation of ecosystem capital accounts” in Europe Jean-Louis Weber, CBD Conférence, Libreville, 16 Septembre 2010

Importance of accounting by relevant functional units to measure impacts (e. g. catchments) West East The total water resource of the country 10 lakes distributed over 2 catchments. The western catchment with 2 lakes is close to a scarcity threshold while water resource is abundant in the eastern catchment (8 lakes). Scenario 1: 1 lake is lost in the east Scenario 2: 1 lake is lost in the west. Resource loss of 1 lake in the eastern catchment (a) Aggregated national loss (without catchments): (10 -9)% = 10% (b) National average of loss by catchments: -2)% + (9 -8)% = 5. 5% 2 (2 Resource loss of 1 lake in the western catchment (a) Aggregated national loss (without catchments): (10 -9)% = 10% (b) National aggregation of loss by catchments: (2 -1)% + (9 -9)% = 25% 2

Need relevant time frame for monitoring impacts on ecosystems: e. g. water resource/demand Mean annual resource is in both cases > mean annual demand No water shortage in case 1, important seasonal stress in case 2 1 2

Quality matters as much as Quantity Ex. FR, mid-1990, s, fast track computation river quality from maps (Source: Crouzet, Le Gall and Germain, IFEN) Many other countries have similar quality maps

Actual and virtual water trade between European river basins + Europe in the Global Ecosystem Actual & virtual water embedded into trade vs. water footprint impact (virtual water from non-sustainable origin) Evolution of the hydrological footprint per capita of the Community of Madrid (m 3 per inhabitant per year) Source: José Manuel Naredo Pérez (Coordinador) et. al. , El agua virtual y la huella hidrológica en la Comunidad de Madrid” © Canal de Isabel II - 2009

Need for thematic integration of water accounts with land, bio-carbon & biodiversity Example from southern Spain: NPP increase in dry region and water stress Much of the increased NPP in semi-arid Spain is due to new irrigations (water taken from aquifers or directly from rivers …) and land development • More NPP brings functional simplification of the ecosystem; • Such causal relations should be reflected in the “biodiversity account” (but the species responses are usually delayed due to nature’s buffering capacity) (from Emil D. Ivanov, EEA-ETC LUSI) need for integrated monitoring and ecosystem accounting •

Definition, mapping & classification of ecosystem capital units used for ecosystem capital accounting (Socio-Ecological Landscape Units - SELU), starting from river basins 1 - river basins and 2 - relief Courtesy Emil D. Ivanov, Oscar Gomez, 2011

Definition, mapping & classification of socio-ecological landscape units (SELU) 3 - dominant landscape types (urban, intensive agriculture, mosaics, grassland, forests, other natural types and no-dominance) Courtesy Emil D. Ivanov, Alex Oulton, 2011

Application: NECB (net ecosystem carbon balance) here mean NECB value by SELUs within river basins boundaries Emil D. Ivanov, Jean-Louis Weber, 2011

Fast track implementation of ecosystem capital accounts: simplified basic water balance Precipitation * - Spontaneous Real Evapo. Transpiration ** + Net infiltration to soil/subsoil *** + Inflows from upstream runoff + Returns of used water & irrigation µ = Available water resource - Use of water by activities & households µ - Evapotranspiration by activities = River basin runoff Sources: * Meteo ** Modelling from meteo data, land cover & NDVI *** Hydrogeological modelling Meteo data Precipitation Evapotranspiration Use µ Estimation from land cover & socio-economic statistics Bold Ital: accounting balances Runoff

Fast calculation for 3 Guadiana River sub-basins Consumption Spontaneous Real Precipitation Estimated / population Water use runoff irrigation Available water resource Agriculture by Evapo-Transpiration Population Meteo data 46 984 30 124 4 1037 934 33 1008 3 82 23 21 1812 46 137 90 Source: EEA, Corine land cover, ECRINS – Estimations from various sources by Oscar Gomez Prieto & Jean-Louis Weber

Water quantity & quality data exist at the Global scale Meteo data Other EO data FAO water statistics Water Footprint database + …. Source: Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity, CJ Vörösmarty et al. Nature 467, 555 -561 (2010) doi: 10. 1038/nature 09440

Economics: example of full cost accounting in response to WFD Joan Escriù Water Agency of Catalunya Environmental Cost of the WFD = CAR 1 + CAR 2 + CAR 3 Cost of the “effective measures” for meeting the objetive of the WFD considered in the Programe of Measures of River Basin Management Plan PHYSICAL ACCOUNTS Impacts on water use Degradation of water quality DA 3 DA 1 recovery MONETARY ACCOUNTS Cost of measures for resource procurement CAR 3 Physico-chemical objectives Cost of measures for mitigating impacts of uses CAR 1 over the water bodies Biological & hydro-morphological objectives Impacts on ecosystems DA 2 Cost of measures of ecosystem restoration CAR 2 Courtesy Joan Escriu

Water Economics and Ecosystem Accounts at the EEA: Template for collating WFD economic data for the water account fast-track pilot project (1) Source: Water Economics and Ecosystem Accounts, Elements from the final study report dealing with the fast-track initiative – Pierre Stroesser et al. for EEA, Framework contract No. EEA/IEA/09/002 , 2010

Water Economics and Ecosystem Accounts at the EEA: Template for collating WFD economic data for the water account fast-track pilot project (1) Source: Water Economics and Ecosystem Accounts, Elements from the final study report dealing with the fast-track initiative – Pierre Stroesser et al. for EEA, Framework contract No. EEA/IEA/09/002 , 2010

Water Accounts, Ecosystem Services & Human Wellbeing: Example of integrated water accounting by Artois-Picardie Basin Agency - France • 20 000 Km 2 • 4, 7 Millions inhabitants • GDP: 98 billions € • GPD/inhabitant: 21 107 € • GPD/inh France: 25 978 € • Unemployment rate: 12, 7% • France: 9, 9 % • 96% of drinkable water come from groundwater Courtesy Arnaud Courtecuisse, Agence de l’Eau Artois-Picardie, France, 2006

Risk of not meeting WFD quality objectives by 2015 Courtesy Arnaud Courtecuisse, Agence de l’Eau Artois-Picardie, France, 2006

Water bill / mean available Income: social discrepancies • several groups of municipalities with ratio>3% (2 -3% is a guidance value – see OCDE, EU, Académie de l’eau) • these groups of municipalities combine high water price and low mean available income (and sometimes household’s expenses to buy bottled water are equivalent to the annual water bill) Comparison with unemployment 2004 • the commonly used value of annual consumption of 120 m 3 per household hides important differences of mean consumption per region • mean available income per municipality hides also various situations (and the real part of the population facing major difficulties to pay water bills) Courtesy Arnaud Courtecuisse, Agence de l’Eau Artois-Picardie, France, 2006

Thank you!