Report on EU policy changes and external challanges to water pollution and quality control available to read

The report provides a summary of relevant European Union (EU) policy challenges and external pressures that may impact water pollution, like climate change, demographic or technological developments, and urbanisation. This evaluation should serve as a basis to an in-depth assessment of the challenges to efficient and effective management of water-borne pollution of surface water at two scales:

·       the entire Danube River Basin (DRB),

·       the DRB countries.

The legislation regarding water management has been recently undergoing numerous reviews and amendments, linked to the usual policy cycles and triggered by technical and scientific progress. This covers better understanding of impacts of hazardous substances (HS) in water to environment and human health and technological progress related e.g. to increased possibilities of their identification, quantification and treatment (i.e. better analytical methods, instruments and technologies).

In the EU policy, numerous policy acts (amendments, recasts) entered already or will enter in near future into force. The new Drinking Water Directive (DWD) establishes stricter requirements for intended use for human consumption. New criteria on reuse of (waste)water for agricultural irrigation are also already in force with the new regulation on minimum requirements for water reuse. The updated Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD), aiming at further reduction of water pollution and improving water quality, has just been adopted. Efforts continue also in the field of regulation of industrial emissions, with tighter requirements e.g. of emission limits and favouring less harmful processes and technologies to promote cleaner water cycles and healthier environment. In addition, new Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) for 25 dangerous compounds are expected to be adopted to further prevent water pollution of surface water.

Are you interested to read more on:

·       the recent EU legislative changes in the field of water quality and pollution control,

·     other relevant EU legislation and broader initiatives linked to hazardous compounds,

·     and relevant external challenges that may impact future water pollution?

Then please have a look at our report.