According to Nicolas Roche, “we must ask ourselves the question of integrating the environmental value of water according to its availability, its territory, according to its state and especially according to its uses”, he insists.
“We must completely review our relationship with water”, reacts Thursday, March 30 on franceinfo Nicolas Roche, professor at Aix-Marseille University, researcher at the European Center for Research and Education in Environmental Geosciences, specialist in water issues. Emmanuel Macron presented his water plan Thursday in the Hautes-Alpes. Among the announcements for this body of water, a “sobriety plan” on the water “by summer” In “all sectors”. The researcher pleads for the end of the concept of “unlimited resource” in water and a change of economic model where it will be necessary “pay the water at its fair value”.
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franceinfo: Have we arrived at the moment when everyone will have to integrate that our relationship with water will have to change?
Nicholas Roche: Absolutely. We were in a system where our model was based on an unlimited resource concept. All our uses were done in parallel. Everyone took what they needed: whether for industrial use, for agricultural use, for urban use, for domestic use, without worrying about what others were doing or without worrying about the state of the resource.
“With development, the increase in needs and uses, the impact of climate change which lowers the availability of water and which will increase periods of drought, this model can no longer be implemented. It is necessary to completely review our relationship with water.”
Nicolas Roche, professor at Aix-Marseille University, specialist in water issuesat franceinfo
We can say that sobriety has worked on energy this winter. Except that what has pushed people to sobriety is also the increase in the electricity bill. Can the same system be applied to water?
The economic model of water is crucial. Our model was created in the mid-1960s, on the principle that “water pays for water”. That is to say that the revenue related to water is that of the quantity of the cubic meter that we are going to take, so we are going to invoice this cubic meter. This economic model does not encourage savings since the more we save, the less revenue we will have to invest in water. Therefore, this notion of water saving must be integrated into the economic model. The price of water must also be taken into account. At present, people do not pay for the resource, but only for water-related services, whether they are services for making drinking water or for wastewater treatment services, with an average distribution of 45-55% between drinking water and waste water.
“We must ask ourselves the question of integrating the environmental value of water according to its availability, its territory, according to its state and especially according to its uses.”
Nicolas Roche, professor at Aix-Marseille University, specialist in water issuesat franceinfo
Should pricing be linked to usage?
We are talking about progressive pricing, but it has to be realistic and dissuasive. Overall if you increase the cubic meter of water by two euros for a slice of 40 to 50 cubic meters, you increase the filling of a swimming pool by 40 euros, ie a very limited financial impact. What is important: it is really to arrive at a calculation of the value of the resource. You have to tell yourself that we have essential uses related to hygiene and food, and then we have recreational, leisure, production uses for which the resource will have to be paid at its fair value.