Turn on your kitchen tap, grab a glass and have a sip. Can you taste the spirit of the Spree? Probably not – but Berlin’s water is special, because while most cities have to pump water in from surrounding areas, the stuff Berliners drink comes almost entirely from the groundwater beneath our feet. Over 10,000 years, deep layers of stone, earth and sand have formed here that naturally filter our water, and add essential minerals to it along the way. Bonus!
But problems are coming down the pipes for Berlin’s water system. Climate change is leading to hotter summers and more frequent droughts, as well as more extreme rainfall, and with so much of the city built up, less and less water is absorbed by the earth. Perversely, what complicates the picture further is a green deal: Germany’s plan to phase out coal mining by 2038.
… “severe conflicts” will break out over who gets to use our water, and at what cost.
For decades, the Spree’s water supply has been topped up by groundwater pumped out during coal production at an open-cast lignite mine in Lusatia, on the Polish border. Without it, both the quantity and quality of Berlin’s water will be reduced, and experts are warning that without a solid plan in place, “severe conflicts” will break out over who gets to use our water, and at what cost.
Water utility bosses and politicians are now in a race against time to ready the city. The Senate’s Masterplan Wasser sets out 32 measures to protect and improve Berlin’s water supply through 2050. Berliner Wasserbetriebe (BWB), the state-owned water utility company, has made a start on several of these plans, most notably by drilling more wells.
They’ve also built nine underground wastewater storage facilities, including one beneath Mauerpark, where excess rainwater can be stored before processing at one of the city’s six treatment plants. A tenth mega-tunnel, due to open next year, will be able to hold 17,000 cubic metres of rainwater – equivalent to around seven Olympic-sized swimming pools.
BWB is also investing billions to upgrade its sewage treatment plants. “A wastewater plant cannot clean all the substances that are in the water,” explains Astrid Hackenesch-Rump, a BWB spokesperson. “We’re not talking about pathogens and bacteria. We’re talking about residues of pharmaceuticals and TFA.” Trifluoroacetate (TFA) is an acid used in pesticides and in the pharmaceutical industry, which the Federal Office for Chemicals (BfC) considers to be toxic, warning that at high levels, it could impair fertility.
TFA has been detected in German water for years, but the German Federal Environment Agency says its prevalence is increasing – an issue Hackenesch-Rump insists the BWB is dealing with as quickly as possible. “Every plant will get a new station for pharmaceutical and substance trace material reduction. The first one is built, and the other wastewater plants are following.”
While individual households are making an effort to conserve water, and their usage is falling, industrial farming and manufacturing business use is rising. News stories about water use at the Red Bull and Tesla factories in Brandenburg, which were given permission to suck millions of cubic metres of groundwater in drought-stricken areas, have focused public attention on the issue – although they are far from the most intensive water users in the region. Some experts argue that industry should be charged more.
“Private households already pay a higher price in Berlin and Brandenburg than the energy supply or manufacturing companies do. This is quite unfair,” says Claudia Kemfert of The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), who co-authored a recent study which found water demand in Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony could be cut by up to 16% if the BWB raised extraction fees – something it seems cautious to do.
Private households already pay a higher price in Berlin and Brandenburg than the energy supply or manufacturing companies do. This is quite unfair.
“I think it’s unpopular to talk about prices,” says Kemfert. BWB spokesperson Hackenesch-Rump says raising prices is “a hugely political question, because with industry comes jobs,” but that “I can foresee a future where an open discussion takes place about the amount of water we have and about who gets to use it.”
In the immediate term, industrial farmers could drastically reduce their water use simply by irrigating at night, when evaporation happens more slowly. “If you’re going through Brandenburg on a hot summer day, you usually see these watering systems during the day. And they’ve looked the same since, I don’t know, the 1970s, I suppose,” Hackenesch-Rump says.
“So, in this day and age, where you have smart technology, one should be able to water a strawberry field by night. Same goes for Spargel. So, the technology is available, but as long as the water is cheaper than this technology, there’s not much of an incentive for industries and agriculture to change that.”
If you’re wondering whether cutting down your tea consumption or neglecting your houseplants will help, Hackenesch-Rump says there is little individuals can do to mitigate Berlin’s impending shortage. “Most Berliners live in flats, and if you have a two- or three-room flat without a balcony, and presumably you don’t take a bath every day of the week, then there’s no possibility to actually save water.”
However, the BWB and the Senate’s Rainwater Agency is encouraging people to create ‘green roofs’ on their apartment blocks: planted areas that will help to absorb excess rainfall and cool the built environment during hot weather.
The Rainwater Agency aims to make Berlin into a ‘sponge city’, where rainfall seeps into the ground and is filtered gradually, rather than rushing into the sewage system. And it’s starting to happen: tram tracks are being planted on, green gullies created, trees planted and pavement, asphalt and concrete de-sealed to allow water to trickle through. These small ecological measures won’t solve Berlin’s water problem, of course, but they represent a smarter way of thinking about how we treat this precious resource in the swamp we call home.
