Researchers provide recommendations for revision of the EU legislation
Water is an essential resource, for sustaining natural ecosystems as well as human life. Ensuring good water quality and protecting water resources from contamination is a major goal for the European Union. The European Water Framework Directive, is legislation that commits all of the EU member states to achieve good chemical and ecological status for all inland surface waters, estuaries, coastal waters and groundwater, by 2027. The Directive, which was originally adopted in 2000, is currently under review, a process which is due to be completed by 2019. In a recent study, a team of researchers present a number of recommendations to incorporate into the revised Directive, which are designed to improve the monitoring, assessment and management of pollutants.
An important aspect of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) is that it is applicable to bodies of water without regard to international borders. In the case of rivers, this is from source to sink. According to study co-author Dr. Werner Brack, this feature “is the reason why many countries regard the EU Water Framework Directive as an ideal model.”
However, there is still a long way to go to achieve the goal of the WFD. In many areas, challenges still remain, including measures to restore the continuity of the surface water, improve the structure of the water body, as well as reducing contamination by pollutants with more consistency that has been the case so far. Researchers from the European research project SOLUTIONS and the research network NORMAN, have been investigating these issues and have come up with recommendations to improve the management of water, as well as pollution monitoring.
There are over 100,000 different chemical substances that we use on a daily basis and which end up in our water. Most of these are not included in the assessment of water quality under the WFD as it only lists 45 “priority pollutants” and to achieve good water quality status, a water body is only allowed to contain small amounts of these chemicals.
“Monitoring based on individual substances is expensive, ignores the majority of substances and fails to address the actual problems. Most of the priority substances were already removed from the market and replaced with other chemical substances, with often very similar effects. Adding new substances to the list is a cumbersome political process,” said Brack. The WFD has been limited to the testing of substances individually, but pollutants display higher toxicity when combined, than the single compounds do on an individual basis. “It’s not the presence of a polluting substance that’s crucial, but its effect in a body of water.”
The team therefore recommend that the monitoring of water quality should be changed, from the chemical analysis of individual substances, to methods such as biological effect tests. This means that all substances that are found to have the same effect would be recorded, including mixed substances. As a result, chemical analysis, which can be expensive, would only be necessary where certain effect thresholds are exceeded.
According to the researchers, the way that water quality is assessed also needs to change, currently; it is always the worst component that determines whether a water body is classified as achieving good ecological or chemical status, even if it is impossible to influence the component through water management. Brack explains that “the current rules provide too few incentives to solve problems and in many cases result in inaction. We are therefore proposing that measures to improve water quality should be rewarded through a more sophisticated system of assessment." This includes the use of incentives for good monitoring.
By simply measuring and assessing water quality however, is not enough to improve the status of a water body. It must be followed up with suitable measures. In their recommendations, the researchers suggest a more solution-focussed approach to water management, where the monitoring, assessment and potential measures should be much more closely linked from the start.
The researchers hope that the results from NORMAN and SOLUTIONS, will help to provide effective solutions that address the shortfalls of the current WFD as part of its revision and result in sustainable water usage across Europe.
Further information on the WFD is available to subscribers of the Environmental Impact database. By using the search string id:"Water Framework Directive" returns over 1,100 results.
Journal reference
Werner Brack, Valeria Dulio, Marlene Ågerstrand, Ian Allan, Rolf Altenburger, Markus Brinkmann, Dirk Bunke, Robert M. Burgess, Ian Cousins, Beate I. Escher, Félix J. Hernández, L. Mark Hewitt, Klára Hilscherová, Juliane Hollender, Henner Hollert, Robert Kase, Bernd Klauer, Claudia Lindim, David López Herráez, Cécil Miège, John Munthe, Simon O'Toole, Leo Posthuma, Heinz Rüdel, Ralf B. Schäfer, Manfred Sengl, Foppe Smedes, Dik van de Meent, Paul J. van den Brink, Jos van Gils, Annemarie P. van Wezel, A. Dick Vethaak, Etienne Vermeirssen, Peter C. von der Ohe, Branislav Vrana. Towards the review of the European Union Water Framework Directive: Recommendations for more efficient assessment and management of chemical contamination in European surface water resources. Science of The Total Environment, 2017; 576: 720 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.10.104