Water in Austria

The tasks, objectives, and challenges of Austria’s water policy comprise three big areas: Resource protection, regulation of use, and flood control.

The average consumption of drinking water in Austrian households amounts to about 130 litres per capita per day, not including commerce, industry or bulk users.

In 2016 95.2% of the population were connected to municipal sewage treatment plants.

How many rivers and lakes are there in Austria?

The ecological status reflects the quality of structure and functionality of aquatic ecosystems connected to surface waters.

Water of sufficient quality and quantity is essential for the supply of the Austrian population with high-quality drinking water, for the nutritional sovereignty by means of safeguarding agricultural production, and for the business location Austria. A prerequisite for that is the sustainable use and management of groundwater resources taking into consideration climate change.

Ponds are man-made drainable bodies of water in our cultivated landscape. Pond farming in Austria looks back at a long tradition and has been known at least since the 13th century (Waldviertel, Zwettel 1280). It experienced its bloom in the 16th century. Today the centres of pond farming are the Waldviertel region in Lower Austria and southern Styria.

The ecological orientation of flood control is more topical now than ever. Water development and risk management concepts of the Federal Water Engineering Administration are to provide the respective planning foundations.

Water doesn’t know any national borders. For the cooperation in the river basin area a Danube Protection Agreement was therefore signed in Sofia on 29 June 1994 and finally ratified in Austria in 1998. The ICPDR with its secretariat in Vienna fulfils the tasks of this agreement.

The Danube Declaration 2016 provides a framework for the improvement of the waters and for the protection against floods in the Danube area.

What do we mean by groundwater, groundwater aquifer, and types of groundwater aquifers?

What is a groundwater body and how are groundwater bodies classified in Austria?

With the European Water Framework Directive, which entered into force in 2000, water bodies are seen holistically as habitats, and their water is no longer seen as consumer good.

Our rivers are living environments, which are to be preserved and protected.

The project STREAM~LAND supports the implementation of the Integrative River Basin Management in Austria, which will be implemented in the years to come all over the federal territory on the basis of the so-called water development and risk management concept (Gewässerentwicklungs- und Risikomanagementkonzept GE-RM).

As per 30 January 2012 the water authorities were informed by decree of the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management about the Austrian Criteria Catalogue on the utilisation of hydropower.

eHYD provides current data from about 700 precipitation, runoff and groundwater measuring sites in Austria. With eHYD Mobile there exists now a survey of the current water balance parameters of Austria also as WebApp for smart phones and tablets, which shows also the water level next to the respective location.

For many decisions in the field of water management hydrographical data are needed. Hydrografie Österreichs - an independent institution of the federal and provincial administration - is responsible for the fact that these data are collected and made available to the public. For this purpose it is necessary to maintain a comprehensive measuring network and to equip it with modern measuring instruments.

Hydrografie Österreich examines, archivises, and analyses the data collected by the Hydrographical Data Management System HyDaMS.

The Austrian Hydrography has been operating for more than 100 years a measuring network with the goal of making available data for the Austrian water cycle.

For the establishment and maintenance of water supply and sewage disposal in Austria the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management makes available subsidies.

Since summer 2020 an additional amount of € 200 million is available for the subsidisation of measures for the improvement of the ecological status of waters on the basis of the Amendment to the Environmental Promotion Act.

An annual budget of € 1.454 million is available for the funding of research and the development of new technologies and procedures in the field of residential water management and water ecology.

Water supply is one of the most important global issues.