The levels in reservoirs are falling, groundwater reservoirs are drying up, and there are no harvests. Drought catastrophes and crop failures are increasing worldwide. As a result, disputes about the valuable resource of water are increasing. Water is also becoming scarce in Germany, which is otherwise plentiful in water – and the struggles over distribution are increasing.

Not far from Darmstadt, around 13,000 hectares of forest are dying. The hundred-year-old trees: bare and black. According to a study by the University of Göttingen, the forests in the Hessian Ried are among the “forest hotspots in Central Europe”. Around four percent of the trees have already died. The reason for this: The water association Hessenwasser takes too much groundwater from the region. This is what the Hesse state association of the German Forest Protection Association argues and has taken the state to court. This is the result of research by ” Correctiv “.

The question of who gets how much of the precious commodity water is becoming more relevant as climate change progresses – also in Germany. A question that is being clarified in court more and more frequently these days. Because water is also becoming scarce in this country – the fight for the most important resource in the country has recently begun. The past few years have shown that our water is not always enough for everyone. Climate change, economic and population growth and changing consumer behavior are fueling water conflicts here too. The regions of northern and eastern Germany and Bavaria are particularly affected. Reports of water shortages are no longer uncommon.

Now save articles for later in “Pocket”.

In 2020, for example, the drinking water supply collapsed in Lauenau in Lower Saxony. The “ NDR ” reported that drinking water was only available in supermarkets and that fire brigades had to distribute water to flush toilets among the population. The Weser and Elbe rivers were so low that inland shipping had to be restricted. Today it is the Rhine that makes the headlines. The ongoing drought is making the river narrower and narrower these days, and the water level is at a historic low, falling below zero.

The dispute over this important resource also flares up regularly and more frequently when industries or companies are involved. At the end of 2021, a Google location in East Brandenburg failed due to a lack of water. The construction of Tesla’s electric car factory in Grünheide, in the middle of the groundwater protection area, already caused a stir. A similar case took place in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony. The beverage giant Coca Cola has been pumping groundwater here for years and doing business with it. The protest against the commercial use of groundwater as drinking water grew louder.

The Tesla case in Brandenburg has recently even worsened. The water association Strausberg-Erkner (WSE) plans to limit the water consumption of private households to around 37 cubic meters per person per year – that’s a little more than 100 liters a day. A quantity that is well below the national average of 126 liters per day.

In the region, some fear Tesla could cause water shortages. After all, the factory is said to use as much water as a city of 40,000 – and that in one of the driest regions of the country. There is already a water shortage in the region. Brandenburg is simply running out of water, which keeps fueling the dispute over water distribution.

The WSE would also have been responsible for water supply to the data center of the US company Google. This is the result of research by “rbb”. The planned settlement in Neuenhagen failed because there is not enough water in the region, it is said. Water supply bottlenecks are already a reality here. The reason: little rain in summer and more people and companies in the region. Economic development: slowed down by climate change.

And the protest in the Lüneburg district ultimately ensured that the beverage manufacturer Coca Cola, which has been pumping groundwater in Lower Saxony for years and sells it in markets under the name “Vio”, ended its pumping tests at the end of April 2021 and did not build a third well. The dispute dragged on for around five years.

But what about drinking water security in Germany? Where is the situation particularly precarious? Who uses how much?

!function(){var t=window.addEventListener?”addEventListener”:”attachEvent”;(0,window[t])(“attachEvent”==t?”onmessage”:”message”,function(t){if(“string”==typeof t.data

Almost 99 percent of the population in this country is supplied with drinking water by around 5,850 public water companies. Around 70 percent of the raw water used for drinking water treatment is obtained from ground and spring water. According to the Federal Environment Agency, a total of 5.2 billion cubic meters of raw water were withdrawn in 2016. Of this, around 4.6 billion cubic meters were made available to private households, kindergartens, hospitals and commercial enterprises, among others.

!function(){var t=window.addEventListener?”addEventListener”:”attachEvent”;(0,window[t])(“attachEvent”==t?”onmessage”:”message”,function(t){if(“string”==typeof t.data

The processing industry alone needed 4.5 billion cubic meters of water in 2016. That is around 16 percent of all commercial and private water use in Germany. 78 percent of the water required was taken directly from nature. According to the Federal Environment Agency, 22 percent were obtained from outside suppliers or other companies.

!function(){var t=window.addEventListener?”addEventListener”:”attachEvent”;(0,window[t])(“attachEvent”==t?”onmessage”:”message”,function(t){if(“string”==typeof t.data

Data from the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources on the yield of German groundwater deposits show that there are not enough reserves around Dresden or Erfurt, for example. It looks similar in the Ruhr area. In general, Central Germany has the less significant groundwater resources. The largest contiguous area with rich groundwater deposits can be found in the North German Plain.

However, the developments show that the water resources in Germany have declined rapidly over the past 20 years. Around 2.5 gigatonnes of water were lost. This is according to data from the Grace satellites of the Global Institute for Water Security. In a global comparison, Germany is one of the regions that lose the most water.

Climate change and its effects on water resources are not leaving Germany untouched. Groundwater is becoming scarce in many regions, even though water consumption in Germany has recently fallen overall. In the years 1991 to 2016, the utility companies “needed less water overall to cover drinking water requirements, despite a slight increase from 2013 to 2016,” writes the Federal Environment Agency.

However, the tug-of-war over water will only intensify in the future. The “Correctiv” research shows that in the past ten years, judicial conflicts over water have already increased in 11 of 16 federal states. In Bavaria, for example, the number of procedures has almost doubled over the past ten years, as has Baden-Württemberg. In Hesse, the number of legal proceedings relating to water has increased from eight to 14 in the past ten years compared to the previous ten years. Very different actors face each other in court: the manufacturing industry, agriculture, the environment and the citizens of the country.

The big problem: So far it has not really been clear who has priority in the event of a water shortage. Theoretically, the public water supply is legally secured, but in practice the drinking water supply does not have the top priority in all federal states. If there is a water crisis, it is not clear which of the actors mentioned has to save water.

And the situation is getting worse in some places. Groundwater levels are falling in many regions, but consumption is increasing in some. As “Correctiv” shows, this affects the regions of Berlin, Hamburg and Brandenburg. It is also often unclear how much groundwater is pumped out of the ground by agriculture, especially during increasing periods of drought, quantities that have not yet been controlled. In industry, too, hundreds of millions of liters of water are pumped out every day. Individual companies such as the energy group RWE use as much water as several major German cities put together.

Water conflicts are increasingly occurring at the local level. These must then be resolved in municipal authorities or in court. Also because the “National Water Strategy” drafted by federal politicians last summer does not specify any urgently needed priority regulation. “Water supply concepts” are not to be implemented until 2030. This might be too late.

Because even now, legal proceedings are increasingly revolving around clean drinking water. Municipalities are suing corporations, farmers are fighting to have their fields irrigated, and when companies are trying to save money, the cost of water is often at stake. In Hesse, Lower Saxony or Saxony-Anhalt, people are increasingly suing authorities to take action against removal rights. The dispute over water has long since arrived in Germany.