The state of our water
Water concerns us all. No one can escape the topic. Reason enough for the environmental protection organization GLOBAL 2000, together with the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, to dedicate an "atlas" to the topic. The water atlas provides an overview of the state of our most important natural resource - both nationally and internationally.
The Water Atlas shows: International cooperation, binding political rules and financial incentives are crucial for the protection and sustainable use of our water resources. Solutions and ideas are available - these are presented in words and pictures and ensure that the water crisis, which is still often underestimated, is brought into focus.
Domestic challenges
In Austria, the focus is primarily on floodplains, moors, hydropower plants and water pollution. Devastating storms and floods have hit Austria hard in the recent past. It is now important to learn the right lessons from such disasters.
"Floodplains and moors act like gigantic sponges. At the same time, they bind huge amounts of carbon dioxide compared to other habitats. These properties need to be utilized and promoted. Conservation, rewetting and renaturation are the most sustainable and comparatively inexpensive measures to be prepared for future extreme weather events," continues Linhard.
Another major challenge is the multiple pollution of our water bodies. Only around 40 percent of domestic watercourses are in good or very good ecological condition - there is an urgent need for action here. Dams and regulations associated with water abstraction, damming and strongly fluctuating discharge volumes at power plants create additional pressure. The biodiversity of our freshwater ecosystems is under threat across the board. Fish, crayfish, large mussels, aquatic plants and amphibians - at least half of all species are considered "threatened", and the trend is rising.
Invisible problem
Particularly problematic are the so-called perpetual chemicals that we have often described.
Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), a group of thousands of persistent synthetic industrial chemicals, accumulate in the environment and contaminate groundwater. However, there are no threshold values for groundwater, which is why they are not included in the water assessment. One of the PFAS is called trifluoroacetate (TFA).
It is produced by the degradation of PFAS pesticides and fluorinated refrigerants and has been accumulating in water bodies for decades. A special official measurement from 2019 showed that the limit value applicable to pesticide degradation products was exceeded by a factor of 7.1 on average - if TFA were included in the assessment, all Austrian groundwater bodies would probably lose their "good chemical status" status. The pollution and effects on the human body have not even been addressed.
