Trinkwasserversorgung

Drinking Water Supply: More than 185 waterworks are members of the Österreichische Vereinigung für das Gas- und Wasserfach (ÖVGW, Austrian gas and water authorities). These waterworks supply drinking water for almost 5.1 million Austrians (63.3% of the Austrian population). 1.08 million Austrians are supplied by smaller regional waterworks, thus almost 7 million Austrians are supplied by central water supply systems. Only about 1 million have their own supply systems (wells, springs). The total amount of water withdrawn in Austria in 1993 was about 730 million m³. About equal amounts of groundwater and springwater are utilized by the Austrian waterworks (mainly on account of the existence of a special springwater supply system for Vienna). The amount of surface water utilized for the provision of drinking water is less than 1%.

The entire length of the water pipe network of the Austrian waterworks is about 26,000 km, of which more than 20,000 km are distribution pipes and the remaining 6,000 are supply pipes. The waterworks have installed more than 599,000 connections with about 615,000 meters to measure the volume of water used. In 1993 the waterworks made investments of about 1.1 billion ATS supply areas with more than 20,000 inhabitants. The average daily consumption of water in Austrian households is 130-135 l/per head. The highest water authority in Austria is the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.