Public water supply and sanitation in Germany is universal and of good quality. Some salient features of the sector compared to other developed countries are its very low per capita water use, the high share of advanced wastewater treatment and very low distribution losses. Responsibility for water supply and sanitation provision lies with municipalities, which are regulated by the states. Professional associations and utility associations play an important role in the sector. As in other EU countries, most of the standards applicable to the sector are set in Brussels (see EU water policy). Recent developments include a trend to create commercial public utilities under private law and an effort to modernize the sector, including through more systematic benchmarking. Access to water and sanitation Source: Joint Monitoring Program WHO/UNICEF(JMP/2006). Data for water and sanitation based on Health for All database, WHO Regional Office for Europe (1990). Access to safe water and adequate sanitation in Germany is universal. More than 99 percent of users are connected to a public water supply system. The remainder is served by private wells. 93 percent of users are connected to sewers. The remainder is connected to various types of on-site sanitation systems. Water use About 80 percent of public water use is accounted for by residential and small commercial users. The remainder is accounted for by industries supplied from public water systems (14 percent) and other users (6 percent). Residential and small commercial water use is the second lowest among 14 European countries and only a fraction of what it is in North America. Despite forecasts about increasing per capita water use, use actually declined from 145 liter/capita/day in 1990 to only 121 liter/capita/day in 2010. Low water consumption has had some negative operational, health and even environmental impacts. On the operational side, sewers have to be flushed occasionally with injected drinking water in order to prevent stagnation of raw sewage. On the health side, there are concerns about potable water contamination due to low flows. On the environmental side, in some cities such as Berlin water tables are rising and cause damage to the foundations of buildings because of decreased pumping of groundwater by utilities. Water resources and public water supply Water is not scarce in Germany, except for occasional localized droughts. Public water utilities extract only 3 percent of total renewable water resources in Germany, or 5.4 billion cubic metres out of 182 billion