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Hydrogeological effects of climate change will continue to affect water reservoirs worldwide. Some regions are experiencing and will experience severe decline in their water resources due to prolonged periods of drought. Since emergency practices such as the provision of emergency drinking water and forest firefighting depend on regional surface and groundwater resources, the safety of the hydro geosphere's of a region is of fundamental importance, especially in times of crisis. The study uniquely addresses the integration of emergency water management within broader sustainable practices, particularly in the German context where such an analysis has not been previously consolidated. Using the example of emergency drinking water management, the paper elaborates the extent to which measures of emergency response are currently recognised as part of sustainable water management. In an analysis, 79 documents addressing emergency drinking water management of both water supply companies and crisis management authorities in Germany were analysed. The findings revealed a general lack of documents addressing the long-term dependencies between water resources and emergency measures currently applied. Furthermore, the documents do not elaborate on how to implement these measures in a sustainable way recognising the distinctive characteristics of a region. Since response measures can potentially intensify water stress in a region, emergency water management must be consequently included in a holistic water management process to protect landscapes and communities for the future. This paper provides a first comprehensive compilation of essential documents dealing with emergency drinking water management in Germany. It furthermore introduces a new approach to emergency water management and identifies necessary research that could serve as a baseline for future crisis decision making to strengthen national and international initiatives on water resource protection. • Holistic water management must include water intense measures of emergency response. • Procedures of crisis management can intensify processes of regional water depletion. • Performance of emergency response can decline in times of long-term dryness. • The management of water emergencies requires adaptation to regional hydrogeography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study reviews the overall perspectives of end-use studies on urban water crisis management by analysing their beneficial application in water conservation and wastewater recycling. The paper incorporates a critical review of water end-use consumption of 16 major countries from 3 major continents, i.e. Asia, Europe, and Australia. The study reflected a different trend between the water consumption of developed and developing nations, thereby implying a need for separate prospects of end-use results in these countries. Besides, the percentage of greywater generated varies from 54% to 86% of the total indoor household water consumption and thus can be a valuable water resource to solve the urban water crisis. There exists a strong correlation between the amount of greywater generated and the amount of water used for the shower (R2 = 0.69) and laundry (R2 = 0.50). The same, i.e. R2 values, for end-uses of the toilet flushing, dishwashing, and indoor taps with the amount of greywater, were found to be 0.30, 0.26, and 0.04, respectively. Further, except for the end-use pertaining to indoor taps, water consumption of all other end-uses has witnessed an upward spiral in developing countries with time, which may be attributed to the improved accuracy of collected end-use data or increased contribution of 'leaks/others' category. In developed nations like the USA, there is not a single end-use that has shown an absolute increase with time owing to a variety of measures such as increased awareness, education, retrofitting of appliances and several other factors like governmental restrictions. Change in attitude or/and behaviour of people towards water use driven by drought-like experience could also be a valid reason. After this extensive review of the end-use pattern, we proposed specific greywater recycling models that are expected to help engineers, governments, and policymakers in sustainable urban water management. Image 1 • Water end-use estimation can adequately support the urban water crisis management. • Greywater generated at household varies from 54% to 86% of total indoor water use. • Correlation (R2) of greywater with bath and washing was 0.7 and 0.5, respectively. • Water consumption of all end-uses witnessed a temporal shift in developing countries. • Specific greywater recycling models have been proposed based on end-use studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]