Protecting water resources is a critical issue for local authorities: why?

All the figures point in the same direction. Right around the world, water stress is becoming more and more frequent with every year that passes. Nearly half the world's population is now affected by water shortages during at least one month of the year (1). And France is no exception. As global warming threatens the long-term sustainability of our water resources, pollution is now challenging their quality.

In 2018, the United Nations estimated that more than 2 billion people were living in countries subject to water stress. Water stress is predominantly seasonal, so when you include the number of people affected by this issue during at least one month of the year, the figure doubles to 4 billion.

Water stress measures the ratio of water use to available reserves. In recent decades, water stress has trended upwards as the pressure on water has increased, largely as a result of rapid population growth, rising living standards and record levels of economic activity. Excessive levels of water abstraction are threatening resources, and on the global scale, researchers suggest that 30% of the world’s largest groundwater reserves have been depleted in recent years (2).

Protecting water resources in the face of global warming

And the impact of human activity on water resources is far from the end of the story, because there is also global warming to contend with. While the ambition of the Paris Agreement is to limit warming to 1.5°C (above pre-industrial levels), experts warn that such a rise in temperature will have significant consequences for the water cycle that extend way beyond simply encouraging higher levels of consumption. In the past 30 years alone, we have seen a trend towards increasingly extreme episodes of rainfall. These events are now four times more frequent than they were in 1980 (3). Flooding is becoming more frequent as a direct result, but we are also seeing more periods of drought at the same time. In the 1960s, meteorologists recorded 3 droughts per decade. That figure has now doubled to around 6 per decade. So every year, the low water resource thresholds are exceeded somewhere in France, resulting inevitably in the issue of drought orders and the imposition of restrictions on water use. The European Environment Agency expects this trend to intensify further. Météo France forecasts a 6°C rise in average summer temperatures by 2050. So for local authorities, water resource protection will continue to be an increasingly critical challenge, especially since water quality is also under threat. 

 Overexploitation of groundwater reduces the quality of the water that remains. The same applies to surface water. At the same time, the likelihood of pollution from organic matter, nitrates or pesticides also increases. As early as 2015, the French General Commission for Sustainable Development estimated the annual cost of remediating this pollution through water treatment at between €500 million and €1 billion. But pollution is not the only problem. As water resources become scarcer, invasive species are more likely to disrupt the ecosystem, and seawater will increasingly find its way into freshwater sources.

Tools to help local authorities protect their water resources 

So for local authorities, water resource management is becoming more complicated every day. The French government is now giving them the responsibility for improving resource protection in general, and drinking water catchment areas in particular. More specifically, the government expressed its hope that all 1,000 of France’s priority water catchment areas would be covered by pollution protection plans by the end of 2021. The levers available for achieving targets like these include land management for the implementation of initiatives to protect or restore water resources, support for the agroecological transition and the implementation of physical limitations on pollution entering water resources.

So if they want to maintain local economic activity, whether tourism-based or agricultural, and avoid major conflicts over the use of water, local authorities will have to find innovative solutions. This will be their only option for successfully protecting their water resources against this increasingly tense background. 

To find out more, contact us:

Sources of figures:

(1) — United Nations World Water Development Report 2021, Mekonnen and Hoelstra, 2016

(2) — United Nations World Water Development Report 2021, Richey et al., 2015

(3) — Itw Mathieu Baïsset, European Scientific Academies Advisory Council (EASAC), 2018