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Data sources:

С.3. Total water use provided by Belstat (National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus)

Belarus is a non-water-stressed country. The annual water exploitation index varies from around 2 % to 5 %.

The annual average total freshwater use is around 1 500 million m³, which has substantially decreased during recent years, falling to 1 263.5 million m³ in 2017. Water is only abstracted from groundwater and surface water sources. Belarus does not use desalinated water, and data are not available on water imports and exports.

During 2017, about 1 263.5 million m³ of water was used in Belarus by different economic sectors. The main water users are agriculture and households. Water use for aquaculture is the main driver in the agricultural sector, while water for irrigation has a very small share (only about 1 % of the total water use for agriculture). Together, both sectors use on average 60 % of the total freshwater in the country.

Total water use has decreased by 54.7 % between 1990 and 2017. Although many sectors have substantially decreased their water use over time (data for intersectoral comparison are available for the years 2006-2017), water use by agriculture and the electricity industry has remained quite stable during the same period.

Belarus has been investing in renewing and expanding the water supply network in recent years. The total length of the public water supply network has been increased from 31 156 km in 2010 to 38 204 km in 2017. On the other hand, during the same period, the total length of network renewed was about 1 295 km, corresponding to 3.4 % of the existing supply network. As a result of these investments, water losses decreased from 15 % of total water use to 10 % in 2017.

Is water efficiently used by economic activities?