Vienna to build world’s largest drinking water reservoir in view of climate change.
Vienna, the capital of Austria, will build the world’s largest closed drinking water reservoir in the next five years, with a capacity of one million cubic metres (1 billion litres), to guarantee water consumption in the face of climate change and the city’s growing population.
The project is part of the ‘Water Vienna 2050’ strategy launched in 2022 to secure water supply in the future, the city of Vienna said in a statement. Mayor Michael Ludwig, a Social Democrat, said during a visit to the construction site of the reservoir in the south of the Austrian capital:
“Security of supply for the people of Vienna is my top priority. We are acting with foresight and taking responsibility.”
The aim is to meet the growing demand for water, which is expected to increase by 15% by 2050, and to ensure its availability in the face of extreme weather events such as floods or droughts caused by climate change.
The municipality is expanding an existing reservoir in Neusiedl am Steinfeld, which was built in the 1950s and currently holds about 600,000 cubic metres of water. The expansion, which will use special cements to withstand the enormous pressure of the water in four new chambers, will cost about 98 million euros ($102 million), according to the Austrian news agency APA.
In a first step, the volume of the reservoir will be increased from the current 600,000 cubic metres to 800,000 cubic metres, and in a second step to one million cubic metres of crystal-clear water from the nearby Alpine mountains.
According to Vienna’s water company, the Austrian capital uses around 400,000 cubic metres of water every day. The stored water will pass through the reservoir only once a day on its way to Vienna, the fifth largest city in the European Union (EU), without the need for pumps.
