Artificial water storage provided by large dams in the European Union (EU) is vital for integrated water resource management and grid-stabilizing energy storage. According to the International Commission on Large Dams [ICOLD 20261], EU reservoirs store 290 x 109 m3 of water, with nearly 50 per cent including hydropower as a function. However, this infrastructure poses significant environmental and social challenges, requiring a strict Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus management framework. This paper analyses the role of EU water storage within the EU policy context. The available potential is hundreds of billions of m3 of water from reservoir refurbishment, sediment removal, dam heightening, new reservoirs and alternative sites including abandoned mines. This study provides evidence-based data supporting key EU taxonomy and debates surrounding reservoir evaporation, the issue of the power density metrics, and the importance of allocation in multipurpose reservoirs, which is essential to come up with a more accurate value of hydropower-related impact. The study adopts a European-wide approach, discussing aggregated EU values and leaving input to Member States to develop their more specific national analyses, so representing a first step of high-level discussion.
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