engleski

Water Efficiency Indicators in Croatian Manufacturing: Some Lessons and Policy Implications

Water is a vital natural resource. At the same time it has economic and social value. In order to protect and improve the water status in the European Union, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) was formulated in the year 2000. The WFD emphasizes an integral approach to water planning and management through a broader implementation of economic instruments. The River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) is the main instrument for achieving the goals stated in the WFD. As part of the accession process to the EU, Croatia took on WFD requirements for national water legislation, including the formulation of the RBMP by the end of 2011. The RBMP covers diverse aspects of water management with a special focus on undertaking an economic analysis of water use. The primary objective of this economic analysis is to identify economic sectors that are significantly water-dependant or sectors with high impacts on water status. The aim of this paper is to perform an economic analysis of water use, including water efficiency indicators for the period 2000-2009 at the national level. Manufacturing produces pressures in water status, both in terms of quality and in terms of quantity. Therefore, after introductory remarks, the second section of the paper is focused on economic analyses of water use in selected manufacturing industries (according to the National Classification of Activities 2002 – the manufacture of food products and beverages, the manufacture of tobacco products, the manufacture of chemicals and chemical products, the manufacture of rubber and plastic products, and the manufacture of basic metals, fabricated metal products, machinery and equipment). The third section deals with water efficiency indicators. To perform an economic analysis of water use we need to correlate various physical and technical data (the volume of water used for production, cooling, sanitation, the volume of wastewater, the volume of treated wastewater, etc.) with some economic values (GDP, gross value added, turnover, etc.). As a water efficiency monitoring system has not yet been established in Croatia, and due to limited availability of the required data, we propose to use simple but analytically valuable indicators, namely water productivity and water intensity indicators. Water productivity is defined as the ratio of production output in a given industry to the volume of water it utilizes. Water intensity measures the intensity of water use in terms of water volume per unit of value added. We argue that water productivity and water intensity indicators, although simple, measure economic pressures on water resources and therefore can serve as proxies for water sustainability metrics. Policy implications of this analysis are also presented. We conclude this paper by addressing some future challenges related to the formulation of a new integral framework of water efficiency indicators. Some new research agenda issues are proposed, as well.

water use; water efficiency indicators; water productivity; water intensity; manufacturing; Water Framework Directive; Croatia

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