Review for building knowledge database and consensus report on recommendation on wlaw

8.5Management of the industrial and farming waters

8.5.1. The industrial waters: abstractions and pollutions

The industrial abstractions are unequally distributed over the different resources and are mainly concentrated in the large valleys. The abstractions in the ground and surface waters are preferred to the utilization of water originating from the network. Total of industrial abstractions, excluding energy, is fluctuating between 660 and 1000 million m3. The energy sector (excluding hydraulic energy) is itself abstracting 95% of the so-called industrial water with an abstraction total in the natural environment of 11.6 billion m3 in 2000 and of 12.7 billion m3 in 2001.

38% in surface. The integration of the energy industries has more than reversed this trend since with all the industrial sectors taken into account (including energy), abstractions in ground waters account for just 4% and abstractions in the surface waters 96%.

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  The pricing policy
  

The pricing policy implemented in France is very often based on graded rates for the large water consumers. These rates are the fruit of conventions made between the manufacturers and the communities or groups of communities. The LEMA has introduced new provisions that are modifying considerably the pricing system.

These provisions can now enable to encourage the preservation of the water resource by using a financial instrument while taking into account the abundance of the resource on certain territories.

Pricing can vary seasonally in case of threat on the balance between the resource and consumption. The LEMA implies additional protection of the balance between the usages notably during the low waters period.

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  The water charges
  

Regarding their demand in water, the manufacturers can be subjected to the following charges:

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  Sanitation charges: owed by any user connected to the sanitation network and based on the volume of water abstracted on the public network and on any other source. Abstraction and water consumption charge: concerns all the people that are abstracting water directly on a continuous or discontinuous basis, in the surface waters, the source waters and the ground waters. Water abstractions designed for the production of renewable energies are exempted.
  
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  Charge for storage of water during low waters period: owed for any storage of water during the low waters period by any person that has an installation for storage exceeding one million m3.
  
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  Charge for modernizing the collection network: owed by the people subjected to the charge for pollution and which activities lead to discharges of the waste waters in a public network.
  

These charges, based on the volumes abstracted, consumed or stored have a direct impact on the water demand. The system for the redistribution of these charges (via the Water agencies) has an indirect impact by encouraging the works and studies likely to favour the savings and improved management of the resource.

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  The aids given by the agencies
  

The financial system of charges managed by the Water agencies is similar to a saving system that is offering a redistribution of the sums paid. Redistribution is done through the aids for investment and the aids for exploitation in the form of subsidies or subsidized loans. It is through this means that the studies, works or actions for reduction of the abstractions and the consumptions are carried out by the manufacturers.

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  The regulatory control: an efficient tool
  

In terms of water management, the manufacturers are subjected either to the Water police (cf, or to the notifiable installations regulation (installations classified for the protection of the environment or ICPE in French). The article 10 of the law on water of 1992 has established a mechanism enabling the implementation of a prefectorial decree on account of the water police.

The article 10 has been reformulated as follows: Are subjected to authorization or declaration “all the installations that are not listed in the nomenclature of the notifiable or classified installations, the structures, works and the activities performed to non-domestic ends by any natural person or legal entity public or private, and which leads to abstractions on the surface or ground waters, returned or non-returned”.

The law relative to the reinforcement of the environmental protection enables the issuance of one single authorization on account of the law on water and the law relative to the ICPE.
The abstractions of the ICPE are governed by the law relative to the ICPE (1976).

The decree dating 2 February 1998, relative to the abstractions and water consumption as ell as to the diverse emissions, is guiding the prefect during the definition of the requirements to be met concerning the abstractions and discharges that are mentioned in the prefectorial decree for authorization to exploit. Abstraction in excess of 40 m3 of water per day per natural person or legal entity is necessary.

According to the decree of 2 February 1998, the decree of authorization to exploit must:

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  Set one or more levels of abstractions depending on the source and the hydrological context;
  
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  Take into account the level of the abstractions comparatively to the other usages;
  
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  Be in conformity with the provisions in the SDAGE and the SAGE;
  
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  Impose measure of the discharges abstracted;
  
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  Set the provisions for the realization and maintenance of the abstracting structures;
  
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  Set the provisions to avoid contact with distinct aquifers during drillings.
  

The decision-maker will be guided by a compulsory impact assessment for the prescriptions that should be inscribed in the decree for authorization to exploit.

The framework decree of 2 February 1998 is the fruit of a willingness to harmonize the prefectorial decrees. This is designed to avoid the differences in abstractions thresholds between the departments from a same basin. The decree of 1998 requires that the specific volumes used be set which means by production unit. However, the industrial process cannot be the only parameter for setting the threshold. The prefectorial decree must therefore specify a global maximum abstraction level in m3, with the purpose of maintaining control over the impacts of the abstractions.
When required by the context, the prefectorial decrees can make the measures required by the ministerial decree stricter. The “drought” decrees are an example of strictness and the fruit of an anticipation of the water management in a period of crisis.
In case of drought, measures designed for limitation of the industrial usages were implemented in the Vaucluse department during the summer 2004. Nine industrial sites were subjected to the provisions in the prefectorial decree “concerning the measures to be taken for certain industrialists in case of drought”. This decree specifies the industries subjected to the different measures listed in appendix, provides for the creation of a sheet describing the procedure for each measure and establish a post-alert and post-crisis assessment. This assessment enables to evaluate the measures as well as the abstractions avoided.

The measures recommended are quite light in the sense that they only very rarely affect the industrial process. The majority of the measures required fall within the frame of the decree of 2 February 1998.

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  Reduction in the discharge of cooling water;
  
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  Study of the possible improvements;
  
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  Reduction in the abstractions (recovery of the waters for the basin drainage or utilization of the natural reserve for a paper mill);
  
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  Monitoring through ratio of water consumption.
  

Crisis measures:

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  Cleaning of the process installations (water recycling, reduction in discharges, reduction of frequencies);
  
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  Study for partial substitution with reserve water.
  

8.5.2. The farming waters: management of irrigation

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  Utilization of water in agriculture: which trends?
  

The farming usage accounts for the first item in water consumption, above all during the low waters period (70-80 %). Additionally, the demand for farming water is the most elastic (comparatively to the domestic and industrial usages), it is therefore in agriculture that the potential for water savings are the highest, ranging from 15 to 20% (MEDD, 2004).

The first stake in the public effort is therefore to try not to favour the development of irrigation within the areas that are already structurally in deficit or particularly vulnerable to droughts. This can be achieved through the implementation of the legal, economic measures (user/polluter/pays principle), and technical and organizational measures that encourage the agriculture users to (i) make water savings (reduction in abstractions) and to (ii) increase the water efficiency (more crop/drop and more cash/drop).

The recent evolutions, more particularly at the European level with the Water Frame Directive implies that it should be taken account of the scarcity of the resource and of the environmental aspects in the implementation of these instruments, to achieve the “good ecological status”.

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  Regulatory instruments and control of abstractions
  

Counting or evaluating by the appropriate means the volumes abstracted is required by the law in order to ensure control over the abstractions compatible with the water naturally available.

However, at the national level very few offences have been reported and even fewer fines, which lead to believe that there is still progress to be make in the controls area.

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  Economic instruments encouraging water savings
  

Access to water has been historically favoured in France for reasons of agricultural competitiveness and to maintain profitable farms. The reform of the CAP of 1992 has fixed this situation by introducing the subsidies differential between dry crops and irrigated crops. The absence of water pricing for the individual irrigation users, outside the perimeter for concession of an SAR or a ASA, has also contributed to the expansion of irrigation. In the context of a resource that has become more scarce, the issue of regulating through economical tools the use of farming water is therefore raised.

The implementation of the Agro-environmental measures (or MAE in French), more particularly the measures 1101A (reduction in the irrigated surface areas) and 1102A (reduction in the irrigation doses), should have a high incentive impact on the water savings. Concerning the period 2000-2006, the main national measure for the implementation of the MAE took the form of a five-year contract signed by the farmer and the State, in the form of the Contract for Sustainable Agriculture. Regarding the period 2007-2013, the move is towards a territorialized MAE system, in coherence with an agro-environmental project of territory. One ignore the actual efficiency of such measures that rely on the voluntary participation of the farmers, and which only have little impact if they are not taken collectively at the level of the catchment area. The measures are however operating as signals for the scarcity of the resource within the targeted territories.

Eco-conditionality should reinforce coherence between the water policy and the farming policy. It consists in the allocation of public aids from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the irrigated surface areas only if the farmer is meeting the obligations in the law on water, among which the obligation to count the volumes of water abstracted.

Pricing, a tool that is designed to recover the costs, and can constitute an incentive measure for water savings
The rise in the water prices contributes to sending a signal of the resource scarcity, even though it rather comes under a logic of improved recovery of costs (such as recommended by the Framework Directive on Water) and it is only rarely implemented to save the water resource. The analysis of the farming water pricing – which includes the pricing structure and the pricing level – enables to define the levels of incentives to achieve a balance between the offer and the different demands by a fair account of the values of the different usages.

In the case of the individual irrigation (30% of the irrigation users in RMC), water is not subjected to any pricing but for the charges for use to which all the irrigation users are subjected, but the taxation levels are very low and do not encourage water saving.

In the case of the collective infrastructures, pricing are grouped under two categories:

- The “flat-rate” pricing are generally used when the infrastructures are of gravity type and managed by the authorized federative associations of irrigation users (or ASA in French). Most of the time, payment is done on the basis of the subscribed surface area, more rarely it is based on the flow and the number of points. Flat-rate pricing can have an influence on the decision as to whether to have or not recourse to irrigation, but has no impact on the water dose relatively to the hectare. This is the most commonly used forme during the implementation of developments in the view of encouraging the farmers to adopt irrigation.

- The “binomial” pricing which exists in the pressure networks, includes a flat-rate part and a variable part invoiced on the basis of the effective use of the network by the irrigation user (water volume effectively consumed or more rarely, the surface irrigated by watering).
However, water price is not always a sufficient incentive for a more efficient use of water, notably (i) when the water bill only accounts for a small share of the production costs incurred by the farmer; (ii) when there are no alternatives of crops that are saving more water, because of the technical, social or economical constraints, or (iii) when the water bill is made up in majority of fixed costs (Rieu, 2005).

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  Organizational measures and dialogue
  

This mission also recommends setting up a legal tool used for controlling, even prohibiting, the utilization of resources privately in the perimeters supplied by a collective installation.

These initiative of collective concerted management, can lead to a sharp reduction in the water consumptions for irrigation at the level of the catchment point.
And also between the different water users
The SDAGE (or Master Plans for Water Development and Management) must be taken into account in the elaboration of the local policies. Its stake is, among others, to reinforce the local and concerted management; to develop the tools enabling arbitration of the conflicts arising between the needs (setting objectives in terms of quantitative management, and flows on the priority environments).