The economics of water scarcity

Xavier Leflaive

No 239, OECD Environment Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This paper examines the current status of water availability, water demand, and influences from climate change in the European Union. It provides an overview of economic policy instruments to address water scarcity and manage water demand. Additionally, the paper explores policy options and considerations for addressing water scarcity and meeting Water Framework Directive (WFD) objectives. These considerations include balancing demand management and supply augmentation, managing water scarcity through robust allocation regimes, and increasing the use of agro-environmental measures and practices. The paper also discusses the principles and features of effective allocation regimes, drivers and incentives for allocation reforms, the hierarchy and sequencing of water use, abstraction charges, ensuring return flows and ecological flows, and improving the coherence of WFD measures and climate change policies. This is the third in a sub-set of four working papers within the Environment Working Paper series destined to support the further implementation of the economic pillar of the Water Framework Directive. The four papers are best read in combination and provide lessons which are relevant beyond the European Union.

Keywords: abstraction charges; drought; ecological flows; environmental flows; water allocation; water demand; Water Framework Directive; water scarcity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 H54 H76 O21 Q21 Q25 Q28 Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-05-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env, nep-eur and nep-reg
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/81d1bc0a-en (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:envaaa:239-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Environment Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().