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Water Framework Directive - Quality Elements: The Quality Elements map contains information from the River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) reported by EU Member States, Norway and the United Kingdom according to article 13 of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The map shows the quality element status or potential for the European surface water bodies. The Quality Element status layer contains the ecological status or potential based on the quality element status value (i.e. the lowest of the known quality element status values per waterbody).

The role of plastics in Europe’s circular economy: Plastics are essential in society. Yet value chains are unsustainable — generating emissions and increasing waste and pollution. Reducing such impacts demands moving towards a circular and sustainable plastics system. This briefing covers plastics production and consumption in Europe, the impacts on the environment and climate change, and how we can shift to a circular economy for plastics. Work from the Circularity Metrics Lab on plastics (EEA, 2024a) and a report on the Circularity Metrics Lab for Plastics from the European Topic Centre on Circular Economy and Resource Use inform this briefing.

Textiles and the environment: the role of design in Europe’s circular economy: From the perspective of European consumption, textiles have on average the fourth highest negative life cycle impact on the environment and climate change, after food, housing and mobility. A shift to a circular textile production and consumption system with longer use, and more reuse and recycling could reduce those impacts along with reductions in overall consumption. One important measure is circular design of textiles to improve product durability, repairability and recyclability and to ensure the uptake of secondary raw materials in new products.

Projected change in meteorological drought frequency between the periods 1981-2010 and 2041-2070 under two climate change scenarios: Left map: Scenario RCP4.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway); right map: Scenario RCP8.5. The lines represent the areas in which at least two thirds of the simulations used agree on the sign of the change.

Projected change in meteorological drought frequency between the periods 1981-2010 and 2041-2070 under two climate change scenarios: Left map: Scenario RCP4.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway). Right map: Scenario RCP8.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway).The line pattern represents the areas in which at least two-third of the simulations used agree on the sign of the change.

Grassland butterfly index in the EU, 1991-2020: The figure shows changes in population abundance of 15 grassland butterfly species at EU level, using 1991 as reference year. The grassland butterfly index is presented as a smoothed time series and is calculated with 95% confidence limits.