An initial assessment of water security in Europe using a DEA approach

Abstract

The global freshwater crisis has prompted the development of innovative methods to assess the sustainability of water resources around the world. In the last decade, the concept of water sustainability has evolved, giving rise to a more advanced measure of societies’ capacity to safeguard water resources; namely, water security. In this paper, we calculate a composite index to assess water security through the application of a DEA approach. The proposed model is used to aggregate nine indicators relating to the four dimensions of water security: state of the water environment; human health and wellbeing; sustainability of livelihoods; and the stability, functions and responsibility of societies. The model was applied to 15 European countries. Benchmarking results of the analysed countries show that Denmark, the United Kingdom and Finland hold the best positions in the ranking. The findings thus indicate that these countries show excellent performance in water security relative to the other countries under study.

Keywords

• Water security
• DEA
• Composite indicators
• Water governance