title: A holistic water balance of Austria - how does the quantitative proportion of urban water requirements relate to other users?
abstract: Traditional water use statistics only include the blue water withdrawal/consumption of municipalities, industry and irrigated agriculture. When, however, green water use of the agricultural sector is included as well as the virtual water use/water footprint (WF), water use quantity statistics become very different. In common water use statistics, Austria withdraws in total about 2.5 km(3) per year, only 3% of available resources (total discharge 81.4 km(3) = surface and ground water). The total water consumption (0.5 km(3)) is less than 1% of available resources. Urban (municipal) water requirements account for 27% of total withdrawal or 33% of consumption. When agricultural green water use (cropland) is included in statistics, the fraction of municipal water requirements diminishes to 7.6% of total withdrawal and 2.5% of total consumption. If the evapotranspiration of grassland and alpine meadows is also included in agricultural green water use, this fraction decreases to 3.2% and 0.9% respectively. When the WF is assessed as base value for water use in Austria, the municipal water use represents 5.8% of this value. In this globalized world, these traditional water use statistics are no longer recommendable. Only a holistic water balance approach really represents water use statistics.
authors: Institute of Infrastructure, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria. davy.vanham@uibk.ac.at
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Vanham
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001317:Austria; D002947:Cities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D014867:Water; D014881:Water Supply / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
chemical_list: D014867:Water