Modelling household water demand in Europe

This document provides an update of the knowledge on household water use in Europe. We first review the existing scientific literature on household water demand modelling in Europe. Second, we have assembled a new dataset with a NUTS 3 resolution and an EU-28 coverage with data on household water consumption and on household water prices. The typical source of data includes national statistical offices, regulators of water and wastewater services, national associations of water and wastewater services and national associations of municipalities. Having access to this reliable and disaggregated data on water use is a prerequisite for designing any efficient water management policy. Third, we provide some new estimates of household water demand functions for all EU-28 countries using consistent data and econometric methods. Primary data on household water consumption, household water prices and household characteristics that are supposed to have an impact on water consumption have been collected, assembled and checked for each one of the EU-28 countries. A household water demand function has then been estimated for each country using aggregate and recent data (typically municipality, water service or NUTS 3 levels covering the period 2005-2012). The econometric estimates allow us to identify the determinants of the household water demand for each country. We also provide a new set of price and income elasticities. This work is a part of the Euro Freshwaters project developed by the JRC and led by Ad de Roo and Alberto Pistocchi. Lead author is Arnaud Reynaud. Contributing authors are Denis Lanzanova and Vassileos Markantonis