Agent Green proposes a “Drought Code”

Bucharest, 13 August 2026 - Agent Green calls on Romania’s Government and Parliament to urgently initiate, before the next dry summer, a “Drought Code” applied uniformly nationwide, inspired by the French model and built around four clear levels – Vigilance, Alert, Severe Alert and Crisis – so that non-essential water consumption is progressively reduced before shortages reach households, hospitals, emergency services and critical infrastructure.

The four proposed levels are simple and must be understandable to everyone:

1. Level 1 - Vigilance
2. Level 2 - Alert
3. Level 3 - Severe Alert
4. Level 4 - Crisis

At the first level, we prevent. At the next two, we progressively eliminate waste and consumption that can be postponed. At the last, we protect almost exclusively the water needed for life, health, hygiene, safety and the functioning of essential services.

“We are not proposing that Romania learn to live without water, but that it learn not to run out of water,” said Gabriel Păun, ecologist and president of Agent Green.

Romania is already in a situation that no longer allows drought to be managed solely through orders issued once the crisis has begun. Official European data on the water exploitation index place our country among those with the most severe water stress, while international analyses simultaneously show very high supply-network losses, insufficient investment and almost nonexistent reuse of treated wastewater.

In other words, Romania’s problem is not only that we experience periods with less water. The problem is that we lose water, use it poorly and manage the water we have too late.

Romania already has some rules, but lacks an implementation mechanism

Romania is not starting from zero. Water legislation already provides for restriction plans during shortages and establishes priorities for supplying the population. There are vigilance and restriction phases, orders to reduce uses and responsible institutions.

What is missing is a simple, transparent, anticipatory national system that everyone can understand, enabling any citizen, farmer, mayor or company to find out within seconds what situation their locality is in and what rules will follow if resources continue to decline. Today, we too often hear about drought when wells have dried up, local authorities start transporting water by tanker or restrictions reach the tap. By then, it is already too late.

Why the French model?

France has used a progressive drought-management system for several years, with four levels: vigilance, alerte, alerte renforcée and crise.

Citizens can see their locality’s situation online, restrictions do not appear out of nowhere, and each level gradually activates additional measures. The logic is extremely simple: do not wait to run out of water before starting to protect it.

Over time, Romania has adopted institutions and legal, administrative, healthcare and forestry models from France. We can also adopt an idea that works in managing a resource without which none of the others can exist.

How would the Drought Code work?

Level 1 - Vigilance: prevention before it hurts

No restrictions are imposed on households. Information on water resources, hydrological forecasts and areas approaching risk thresholds is published. Operators check major leaks, administrations voluntarily reduce non-essential consumption, and agriculture and industry receive early warnings that limits may follow if conditions deteriorate.

This is the time to repair pipes, check reservoirs, reduce losses and prepare alternatives. It is not yet the time to tell people to stop showering.

Level 2 - Alert: eliminating waste

Restrictions begin on non-essential uses. Watering lawns and ornamental areas is limited, filling private pools is suspended, washing cars at home is restricted, and public spaces are washed only where necessary or using reused water.

Agriculture adopts irrigation schedules adapted to available resources and efficient technologies are favored, while major industrial consumers activate water-reduction and recirculation plans.

Level 3 - Severe Alert: water becomes a strategic resource

Ornamental uses are almost completely suspended. Abstraction for agriculture and industry is reduced further, with differences according to the river basin, available resources and the importance of the activity.

Large industrial facilities must publicly report consumption, reductions achieved and the percentage of recirculated water. Drinking water should no longer be used for activities for which a safe alternative may exist.

Level 4 - Crisis: water remains for sustaining life

This is the level a well-managed system must do everything possible to avoid. But when resources reach a critical level, water is protected above all for drinking, cooking, hygiene, toilets, hospitals, medical services, firefighting, animals’ vital needs and the operation of essential infrastructure.

Non-essential uses are suspended, and exemptions for agriculture and industry are permitted only where shutting down would pose a greater risk to food, health, safety or essential services.

The Drought Code’s purpose is not to teach us how to live at level 4, but to intervene early enough to avoid reaching it.

Romania needs water robustness, not just resilience

We talk a great deal about “resilience”. But resilience means a system’s ability to fall and get back up. Agent Green proposes water robustness: a system designed to withstand drought without collapsing.

This means repairing networks before asking the population to make sacrifices, reusing water before abstracting new quantities, retaining water in soils and landscapes, restoring wetlands and floodplains, collecting rainwater and using drinking water only where drinking-water quality is truly needed.

It is unfair to ask citizens to save every liter while infrastructure may lose enormous percentages of the water entering the network.

“The first water Romania must stop wasting is the water lost by the system,” Păun added.

What do we ask of the Government and Parliament?

Agent Green calls for the immediate establishment of a joint working group bringing together the Government, Parliament, Apele Române, local authorities, operators, academia and civil society to adapt the existing framework into a national Drought Code.

We propose:

• legislating the four national levels – Vigilance, Alert, Severe Alert and Crisis – with measurable thresholds and predictable rules;
• launching a national public platform, “Starea Apei” (“Water Status”), where anyone can enter their locality and instantly see water-resource conditions, the alert level, restrictions and the forecast for the coming weeks;
• publishing network losses for every operator and setting mandatory reduction targets;
• a national program for reusing treated wastewater in agriculture, industry, urban cleaning and irrigation of green spaces;
• accelerating rainwater collection in public and industrial buildings and new residential developments;
• restoring landscapes’ natural capacity to retain water by restoring wetlands, floodplains, soils and forests;
• modernizing irrigation and encouraging technologies that produce more food with less water;
• annual public reporting to Parliament on water resources and progress achieved.

Agent Green rejects populism on this issue and does not want another strategy left in a drawer, but a mechanism that activates automatically when water levels in soil, wells, lakes and rivers fall.

Until the state adopts it, we citizens can apply it ourselves

Agent Green also has a direct message for citizens, businesses, local authorities, hotels, restaurants, farmers and building managers. We do not have to wait for legislation to start thinking in these four levels.

When resources are normal, we prevent. When drought begins, we eliminate waste. When drought worsens, we temporarily give up consumption that can wait. When we reach a crisis, we protect water for life and health.

Anyone can voluntarily apply this logic at home, in a company or in a community. We are not asking for water austerity, but for its use with intelligence, respect and humility.

We do not want people to live permanently under restrictions, and we propose making severe restrictions so rare that they become the exception rather than the new normal.

Climate change brings hotter summers, longer droughts and increasing competition for the same quantity of water between the population, agriculture, industry, energy and nature.

We can continue reacting after every crisis with tankers, improvised bans and appeals to the public, or we can now build a system in which we know in advance how much water we have, what happens when it starts to fall and who reduces consumption first.

Romania should not have to reach an empty tap to discover that there is a drought. The Drought Code must start working now.

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Press contact: office@agentgreen.ro