Water consumption in North Macedonia has been growing throughout the years, and last year record quantities of potable water were taken from nature by the water utilities. According to the data provided by the State Statistical Office, in 2020, the public water utilities produced 313,031,000 cubic meters of drinking water, i.e. almost 10 million cubic meters more than in 2019. In percentages, during last year, there was an 3% increase of the captured water compared to the year before.
The comparisons of the data from 2018 to date show that in North Macedonia the drinking water consumption is on a constant rise. Even 3 years before, in 2018, there was a increase of 10.1% compared to 2017 of the water taken from nature and utilized in the public waterworks in the municipalities.
Nevertheless, the real significance of the record quantities of consumed drinking water in 2020 can be seen if we cross the data from the Annual Report of the Energy and Water Services Regulatory Commission for the previous year. Hence, we can see that the annual rise of the consumption in the amount of 10 million cubic meters is almost identical to the total quantity of potable water that was produced in the whole Northeastern region last year.
Namely, the produced drinking water in the municipalities of Kumanovo, Kratovo, Kriva Palanka, Staro Nagorichane, and Rankovce during all the 12 months in 2020 was 12,241,264 cubic meters of water, shows the data provided by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
The statistical data for the whole country for 2020 shows that out of the total, the greatest quantity was taken from springs (63,8%) and the least from the lakes (0,8%).
Meta.mk has been writing for a while about the enormous losses of the drinking water in the water supply systems. The the non-revenue potable water in the public waterworks on a national level is marking a decrease, from 67,55% in 2018 to 61,94% during last year. Still, this trend of lowering the losses is far from the provided instructions by the International Water Association, which for which the acceptable loss percentage of potable water in the waterworks should be below 30%.
Despite the fact that the municipalities and the public communal enterprises should themselves do more to lower the percentage of the non-revenue water, the people themselves are also big problem (watering the fields, watering the yards, etc.) thereby raising enormously the consumption of potable water, especially during the summer period.
A significant factor that plays a role in the increased consumptio throughout the years is climate change i.e. the rise of the country’s average temperatures. Together with the rise of average temperatures in North Macedonia, there is a rise in the number of days with enormously high temperatures and tropical nights that leads to increased use of potable water for different purposes on part of the people.
