Economy and sustainability of water

Abstract

The main aims of my thesis can be summarized in two parts. On one hand, it is to integrate the Water Framework Directive (WFD) economic analysis with the environmental accounting developed by Sytem of Environmental Economic Analysis Central Framework (SEEA-CF), and specifically in SEEA-Water (UNSD 2012). SEEA-Water has been developed by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat with the support of other institutions (EUROSTATamong them). It provides a conceptual framework for organizing hydrological and economic information in a coherent and consistent manner. The system has its origin in economics, but also includes physical information. The hybrid nature of the accounts gives the analyst the opportunity to study both dimensions.This will allow the harmonization of EU member states water economic analysis create an standard tool that, if adopted widely, would allow international comparison of the state of water resources and specifically for European policy, it would facilitate Member States' WFD reporting to the European Commission. On the other hand, the objective is to analyse and compare the sustainability of the integral water cycle in the Spanish River basins and to determine the dimensions that may be enhanced to improve Basin’s sustainability in order to fulfil the objectives and requirements set by the WFD on basin management. Even though the concept of sustainability has been traditionally associated with the triple bottom line (TBL) framework, composed by economic, environmental and social dimensions, the analysis enlarges sustainability by including governance and participation issues. A multicriteria decision analysis approach is proposed to aggregate all sustainability dimensions. Data for each BWA has been obtained from the hydrological plans for the second planning cycle (2015-2021). Experienced stakeholders participated in the evaluation process. Results show a classification of the Spanish basins according to their sustainability and the performance of each basin in every particular dimension. It also illustrates the importance of each indicator in contributing to sustainability, being a starting point to improve water management in Spanish basins for future planning cycles.