1. Water Accounts at the EEA
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

2. 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...)

3. Support the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive
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

4. Macro-economics: GDP growth and the need to account for natural resource use & ecosystem capital degradation
Resource efficiency = sparing materials & energy (technology, consumption patterns)
4.7 Mio km3
12.5 Mio km3
Use of accessible
freshwater resource (today 54%)
Resource efficiency = ecological management of land, soil & water, ecosystem capital maintenance
 Beyond GDP 2008
 “Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi” report 2009
 TEEB
 WAVES/ WB Partnership
 SEEA2003 / rev 4

5. GDP: Concerns about meaning and measurement
Bertrand de Jouvenel 1968: “Because National Accounts are based on financial transactions, they account nothing for Nature, to which we don’t owe anything in terms of payments but to which we owe everything in terms of livelihood.”
Early “green GDP” adjustments: how to maintain national income when natural resource are depleting (“the weak sustainability”)? What are the “good” and “bad” components of GDP? (the first SEEA1993 – no implementation)
More recently:
Beyond GDP Conference, Brussels 2008: keep GDP but supplement it with indicators
TEEB, 2008, GDP of the Poor
Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (“Stiglitz report”), Paris 2009: National Income is more important than Gross domestic Product; Social distribution of Disposable Income still poorly addressed; “dual” issue of sustainability: overconsumption/ underinvestment
Capital approaches:
Early attempts at the World Bank: “Genuine or Adjusted Net Savings”
Multi-capitals approaches of sustainable development: man-made, financial, natural, human, social
Ecosystem approaches: Green Accounting for Indian States Project, Simplified Ecosystem Capital Accounts (EEA), SEEA revision... 5

6. Services & Natural assets accounts
SEEA: Water accounts cover many aspects, interconnected and interconnecting
Ecosystem accounts
Services & Natural assets accounts
The beauty of SEEA is that it does not restrict to one variable & embraces (in principle) the various aspects of water systems 
even though water quantities accounts and associated monetary accounts are the first action, they should be followed quickly or accompanied by other modules
quality of rivers, lakes, coastal waters, groundwater
emissions to water from municipalities and sectors
state of water ecosystems
make sure that
all aspects of water systems are covered incl. water in soil
the spatial dimension of water is addressed correctly : water transfers are not all possible or sustainable
time, variability are taken into account: impacts of periodic shortages might be huge

7. UN manual for environmental-economic accounting: SEEA2003 Enlargement of the System of National Accounts
Revision  SEEA2012/13
Impacts on ecosystem capacity of delivering services/benefits
RM HASSAN - UN The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (UN 2003) -
RANESA Workshop June 12-16, 2005 Maputo
Part 1
The SNA satellite accounts for the environment
expenditure, taxes,
hybrid accounts,
physical flows,
sub-soil, energy, water, land,
economic assets depletion
Part 2
Ecosystem capital accounts
Ecosystem stocks and
quality, ecosystem services, benefits and maintenance costs…
Negative feedbacks of ecosystem degradation on production and wellbeing

8. 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

9. Simplified ecosystem capital accounting circuit
GDP
GDP
& Adjustments:
 Real Net National Income
Final Consumption at Full Price
Sustainable use
Non-sustainable use
Non-paid costs still needed to remediate ecosystem degradation (€)
Ecosystem degraded by over-use
Healthy ecosystem
ES economic benefits (€)
ES economic benefits (€)
ES economic benefits (€)
Economy
Natural resources, ecosystem services (j)
Ecosystem capital 9

10. 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

11. 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
Aggregated national loss (without catchments): (10-9)% = 10%
National average of loss by catchments: (2-2)% + (9-8)% 2
= 5.5%
Resource loss of 1 lake in the western catchment
Aggregated national loss (without catchments): (10-9)% = 10%
National aggregation of loss by catchments: (2-1)% + (9-9)% 2
= 25%

12. Need relevant time frame for monitoring impacts on ecosystems: e. g
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

13. Quality matters as much as Quantity
Many other countries have similar quality maps
The presence of certain types of watercourses and of their relative importance, expressed by the kmcn size, varies widely from a region of France to another. These differences are illustrated by the map ( Annex 1) which shows that the presence of certain types of water-courses is not ensured in all RNDE basins, and especially that the relative importance of these various types varies extremely from one region to another. It is noted in particular that the downstream reaches of the Rhone are of a considerable weight in the total kmcn of the "main rivers" class.
It is clear that these results, presented within the framework of a pilot study based on data about which one could say they need some evaluation and improvement, have to be handled with precaution.
The future developments of the quality accounts will have to set out of a database of the more complete water-courses than that currently used for the publication of the maps. However, it is recalled that the database CARTHAGE is not yet available for the whole European territory of France.
Ex. FR, mid-1990,s, fast track computation river quality from maps
(Source: Crouzet, Le Gall and Germain, IFEN)

14. Actual & virtual water embedded into trade
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 (m3 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

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

19. Fast track implementation of ecosystem capital accounts: simplified basic water balance
Meteo data
Precipitation *
- Spontaneous Real EvapoTranspiration **
+ 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
µ Estimation from land cover & socio-economic statistics
Bold Ital: accounting balances
Precipitation
Evapotranspiration
Use
Runoff 19

20. Fast calculation for 3 Guadiana River sub-basins
Water use / population 2 3 4 23 46 90
Estimated runoff
Population
Agriculture
Available water resource 46 82
124
Precipitation
181
1008
1037
Consumption by irrigation 21 33 30
Spontaneous Real Evapo-Transpiration
984
934
137
Meteo data
Source: EEA, Corine land cover, ECRINS – Estimations from various sources by Oscar Gomez Prieto & Jean-Louis Weber

21. 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, (2010) doi: /nature09440

22. Environmental Cost of the WFD = CAR1 + CAR2 + CAR3
Joan Escriù Water Agency of Catalunya
Economics: example of full cost accounting in response to WFD
Environmental Cost of the WFD = CAR1 + CAR2 + CAR3
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
MONETARY ACCOUNTS
Impacts on
water use
DA3
Cost of measures for
resource procurement
CAR3
Physico-chemical objectives
Degradation of
water quality
DA1
recovery
Cost of measures for
mitigating impacts of uses over the water bodies
CAR1
Biological & hydro-morphological objectives
Impacts on
ecosystems
DA2
Cost of measures of
ecosystem restoration
CAR2
Courtesy Joan Escriu

23. 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

24. 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

25. Wuppertal Institut: José Acosta Fernández
The benefits side: first step of the calculation of „inclusive sustainable benefits“ from the services of an ecosystem (e.g. agro-system, forest, fishery, hydrosystem...)
Forward GVA/GDP effects by sector:
Total quantity of Gross Value, which cannot be added by itself and by the users of the products of sector i, if sector i reduces or ceases its production
Interpretation of „Total GVA-Effect Matrix“ resulting of the linkage of the „Total Effects/Flows Matrix“ of hypothetical extraction with the national Gross Value Added
Backward GVA/GDP effects by sector:
Total quantity of Gross Value, which cannot be added by itself and by the product suppliers of sector j, if sector j reduces or ceases its production
Wuppertal Institut: José Acosta Fernández
EEA workshop

26. Water Accounts, Ecosystem Services & Human Wellbeing:
Example of integrated water accounting by Artois-Picardie Basin Agency - France
Km2
4,7 Millions inhabitants
GDP: 98 billions €
GPD/inhabitant: €
GPD/inh France: €
Unemployment rate: ,7%
France: 9,9 %
96% of drinkable water come from groundwater
Courtesy Arnaud Courtecuisse, Agence de l’Eau Artois-Picardie, France, 2006

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

28. 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 m3 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

29. Thank you!