France
ƒ Five major rivers
An overview of
water management
in France
ƒ 5,500 km of coastline
ƒ 450 aquifers
ƒ 60 millions inhabitants
ƒSuperficy : 1/17 of
Australia
R. Barbier & A. Grandgirard
Urban water in France
Content of the presentation
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Water resources in France
ƒ Abundant resources but disparities between basins
ƒ Water resources in France
9 Water resources available : 3,000 m3 / year / inhab
ƒ Resource Management
9 Average domestic consumption : 165 litres of water /day /
inhab (2004)
ƒ Water services
ƒ Sustainability issues
Source : CIEau, Agences de l’eau
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ƒ Quantitative issues : increasingly frequent droughts
9 Three major periods of drought since 2000
ƒ Qualitative issues
9 85% of French people were affected by water restrictions in
2005
9 Water framework Directive :
« Good ecological status »
for water and aquatic
environments by 2015
9 Restrictions were applied in 75 départements in summer 2005
9 Work to reduce diffuse
agricultural and urban
pollution (nitrates directive,
urban wastewater)
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2 types of territories relevant for water policy
Resource management : the Water Agencies
ƒ Objectives :
9 Water conservation and
improvement
9 Combating pollution
9 Informing the public
Councillors
representing
local districts,
départements
and regions
19
ƒ Governance : through a
basin committee
38
ƒ Tools
9 Financial : Licence fees and
investment aids
6 river basin districts corresponding
to the major French river basins
Representatives
of relevant
ministries
• Based on the polluter / user
pays principle
• The financial intervention
policy of water agencies is
guided by the Basin
Committee
22 Regions,
100 départements
36 000 municipalities
7
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38
Users
(industrialists,
farmers
farmers,
anglers,
associations)
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Total amount of money invested trough the 6 water agencies :
12 billions € for water and the environment
The Polluter / User Pays Principle
Users: local authorities, industry and farmers
Pollution
tax
Taxes in accordance with the quantity
of water abstracted / pollution
discharged
Abstraction tax
User pays
Polluter pays
Water Agency
Increasing
the
resource
Combating
pollution
Users: local authorities, industry and farmers
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Water distribution utilities
9 Strategic and political tools : Plans for Water
Development and Management (SDAGE)
ƒ Key role of the local authorities
Political Authority
• Drawn up by the Basin Committees (at river basin level)
AUTORITE ORGANISATRICE
• Key orientations for a ten-year period
Autorité légitime, garante du service public
• Water quality and quantity objectives
– Reference : Good ecological status for water and aquatic
environments
i
t b
by 2015
User - citizen
Service Provider
CITOYEN - USAGER
• Water status protection and improvement
• Programme of measures : regulatory, incentives…
• Public decisions have to be compatible with SDAGE
orientations and priorities
• Mandatory public consultation
OPERATEUR
L’habitant au cœur
du service public
Prestataire pour l’usager
ƒ Key numbers
9 15.244 drinking water distribution utilities : 560 000 km of water pipe
+ 120 000 km reticulation pipes ; 3 000 water treatment units
9 11.992 wastewater utilities ; 160 000 km of sewage pipe ; 12 000
water treatment plants
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ƒ Management mode :
ƒ The legal framework
9 Local government control or delegation
9 A mandatory mission of municipalities
9 26% of the population served by a public operator and 74%
by a private operator (Source: BIPE/FP2E 2006 Report)
9 Health and environmental regulations
9 Consumer protection legislation
9 Water pays for water :
• Consumers finance drinking water and water purification
services
i
9 Specific budget and auditing
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Organisation de la compétence eau
ƒ Water pricing
9 A mandatory 2 parts pricing
• Limitation of the fixed part
Autorité organisatrice
N ANTES ME TROPOLE
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150 000 abonnés
3 000 km de réseau
9 Full cost recovery
DIRECTION DE L’EAU
• At least current operation & investment
Water distribution
3 OPER ATEURS
REGIE
COMMUN AUTAIRE
10%
S AUR
France
Wastewater collection
and treatment
15%
VEOLI A
E AU
42%
2%
"Resource conservation"
payment
Pollution payment
OPER ATEUR
PUBLIC
OPER ATEUR
PRIVE
OPER ATEUR
PRIVE
31%
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Taxes (FNDAE, Voies
navigables de France,
VAT at 5,5%)
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MEDAD 2004
The average price of water in European countries
ƒ Users
9 Many users, few subscribers
• Paris : 2 150 000 habitants, 800 000 households, 93 000
subsccribers
9 According to NPM, a focus on customer satisfaction
9 The metering debate
• Buildings : until recently
recently, no mandatory individual meter
• Since 2004, mandatory individual meter in every new building
• But is it really efficient?
9 Water poverty
• From the entitlement to a help to pay the bill…
Source: NUS Consulting 2004
• To the right to access to water : towards a social pricing?
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ƒ Utilities and public participation
ƒ Performance indicators
9 Information
9 A mandatory list of PI to be filled up by local authorities
• annual publication of a report on price / quality / performance
of the utility
• Usually available on-line
9 Benchmarking
• Autonomous initiatives
• The new role of the Onema (National Office for Water and
Aquatic Environments)
9 Consultation
• consultative commission [CC]
– Composition : political and technical officials + NGO
NGO’ss (consumers
associations)
– Mission : information about major decisions and about the results of
a set of utilities
• A relatively disappointing assessment
– Not enough meetings to allow a learning process among
participants
– Not enough time per meeting to deepen the topics
– A focus put on the question of the price
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Are French water utilities sustainable?
ƒ Second crisis with urban water quality
ƒ First crisis with drinking water quality
9 More than a century ago, water treatment brought a robust
answer to hydric diseases
9 It enlarged the set of available technologies to make drinking
water, and later to treat waste water.
9 But sanitary engineering now suffers overcomplexification :
more and more criteria,
criteria less and less users
users’ trust and
confidence
9 One solution is to supplement technology with territory :
(large) cities seek to bargain cleaner resources with farmers
to reduce water treatment. This implies a new governance.
Urban water in France
9 Large cities have serious impacts on the aquatic
environment, due to considerable waste water discharges :
Achères first tributary to the Seine in Summer!
9 EU water policy wants to upgrade environmental
performances
9 Additional impacts due to soil imperviousness
9 It raises an issue of coordination between land use planning
and law, and water management
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ƒ Third crisis with volumes of water sold
9 For the first time, distributed water volumes stagnate or
decrease (in Paris municipality, 25% less in 15 yrs).
9 As financing comes from water bills, water prices are bound
to rise, since it is mandatory to balance expenses with
recipes
9Y
Yett some customers
t
are looking
l ki
for
f individual
i di id l solutions
l ti
(private wells, rainwater tanks, reuse and harvesting, etc.)
9 In particular centralised sewerage is threatened. Need to
redefine the service and the technical system to manage, but
this is long term !
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ƒ Forth crisis with institutional framewok and
governance
9 Too many small water utilities unable to address all these new
issues
• long term renewal of a large technical heritage, without initial
subsidies
• Resource protection….
protection
9 Different options :
• They can merge and create bigger utilities
• They can join in new partnership with other public authorities
(Departement)
• A dramatic change in the repartition of responsabilities, eg :
– Bulk Water production : Departements
– Water supply : local councils
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Applying the WFD 3 Es to public services
ƒ Eau&3E : a 4–year project
9 In the 1st year we are going to investigate what is going on in
other countries
1
1 – Is there enough investment to
keep up the infrastructure?
Economics
2 – How much more to invest to
comply with sanitary and
environmental standards?
3 - If 1 and 2 are met, is water price
still socially acceptable ?
2
Environment
3
Ethics/
Equity
4. How to design and implement a
multi-level governance?
9 We are then going to develop a 4-dimension knowledge:
• What makes water consumption go up or down?
• How can the social dimension be sustainably taken care of?
• What infrastructure has to be managed on the long run and how?
• Which new forms of governance could alleviate some of the
problems?
9 While we work with Paris, we also do in-depth analyses in
Bordeaux (with the mixed board SMEGREG) et and some
cities in Languedoc Roussillon
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Thank you for your attention
[email protected]
[email protected]
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