“Prospective territorialized water demand by 2050”

“Water demand – Territorialized outlook for 2050”. This is the title of a France Stratégie study which was released yesterday

This was to respond to a request from the Prime Minister in November 2023.

This report studies between 2020 and 2050 the theoretical developments in water withdrawals and associated consumption, that is to say the share of withdrawals evaporated, according to three prospective scenarios:

• the first, called “trend”, continues past trends.
• the second, called “public policies”, simulates the implementation of recently announced public policies.
• the third, called “disruptive”, is characterized by careful use of water.

Between 2020 and 2050, in the most unfavorable climatic configuration studied, annual demand stagnates in the trend scenario (+ 1%) and decreases in the public policy (- 24%) and disruption (- 47%) scenarios, particularly in the due to the drop in demand for energy production in the Rhône valley. The demand for irrigation increases sharply and becomes the majority. Unlike energy production, irrigation consumes the majority of water withdrawn due to plant evapotranspiration. Consumption therefore increases substantially in the trend (+102%) and public policy (+72%) scenarios. In this last scenario, they are multiplied by more than two in almost a quarter of the watersheds. Only the disruption scenario makes it possible to contain the increase in consumption (+ 10% compared to 2020) in the most unfavorable climatic configuration studied.
With the increase in the share of agriculture in withdrawals, water demand will be more concentrated during the hottest months of the year, when water resources are at their lowest in aquatic environments. A future publication from France Stratégie will quantify the tensions between available water resources and this demand.

Or the following conclusion in the summary document (otherwise read pages 5 to 10 of the full report for a more precise summary):

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