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Sewage treatment is an essential service that can deliver clean water, nutrients and organic fertiliser. It can and should contribute to delivering the broad goals of the Green Deal, with a key role in supporting the ambition to achieve zero pollution.
The long-standing cooperation between the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the United Nations Environment Programme / Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/MAP) has delivered successive harvests of knowledge products, such as the EEA-UNEP/MAP report titled Towards a cleaner Mediterranean: a decade of progress — Monitoring Horizon 2020 regional initiative, and several joint activities driving forward the collective endeavour for a healthy Mediterranean Sea and coast in the context of sustainable development.
This report aims to update our knowledge of water stress (a general term that includes drought and water scarcity) in Europe to inform policymakers and interested stakeholders about the current state of play.
This report aims to give a European overview of the main drivers and pressures that are at the core of key water management challenges and which put European water bodies most at risk of not achieving key environmental objectives. Identifying the pressures from and drivers of key water management challenges at the European level can help in prioritising the main issues that should be tackled with measures.
This report provides a factual analysis of the environmental pressures exerted by the maritime transport sector, presents up-to-date information on the relevant EU and international environmental standards and describes current and future actions to reduce the sector's impact on our environment.
Monitoring and reporting results for Horizon 2020 regional initiative
This report summarises how over 40 years of European environmental policy and management have significantly improved bathing water quality across Europe.
This report was initiated following the EEA's 2018 assessment of the status of and pressures on European waters, to highlight the role of agriculture in achieving an improved status of surface water and groundwater in future river basin management plans
The importance of free-flowing rivers that allow free movement of water, sediment, fish and other organisms is increasingly recognised by EU environmental policy, in particular the Water Framework Directive and the biodiversity strategy for 2030. However, the large number of barriers on our rivers has resulted in a loss of river continuity. This briefing addresses the following questions: What is the density of barriers on rivers? What do we know about their impacts on rivers? How can we improve the European knowledge base on barriers in rivers?
Water resources, surface water quality and water consumption in the Eastern Partnership countries
This joint EEA and UNEP/MAP report takes stock of the progress achieved and challenges ahead in the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) Horizon 2020 initiative for a cleaner Mediterranean (H2020).
This report provides a set of key messages on the current use of Europe's seas and its combined effects on marine ecosystem condition. These messages underpin a set of lessons from marine ecosystem recovery from which solutions for a brighter future can be identified.
Floodplains are part of Europe’s natural capital, covering 7 % of the continent's area and up to 30 % of its terrestrial Natura 2000 site area. Studies have shown that 70-90 % of floodplains have been environmentally degraded. The objective of this work is to showcase that natural floodplains support achieving multiple EU policy objectives. More specifically to show that natural and restored floodplains provide an alternative to structural measures for providing flood protection, and at the same time support achieving higher quality ecosystem service like improved water quality, improved conditions for biodiversity conservation and improved recreational value.
It is currently not possible to perform in-depth environmental and health risk assessments of all chemical substances in use in Europe because of the great variety of chemicals and their diverse uses. New and legacy chemicals continue to be released into Europe’s environment, adding to the total chemical burden on Europe’s citizens and ecosystems. Early identification of emerging risks is one of the activities of the European Environment Agency (EEA). This briefing summarises the known and potential risks to human health and the environment in Europe posed by a group of very persistent chemicals, the per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS).
This assessment explores whether Europe has been able to reverse eutrophication trends in its regional seas. The assessment is based on publicly available monitoring data, primarily collected in the context of the Water Framework Directive, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and Regional Sea Conventions.
It is easy to take water for granted. Clean water comes out of a tap, we use the water and then ‘dirty’ water disappears down the drain. In this way, the water that leaves our homes, schools and workplaces is contaminated. For most European citizens, such waste water is collected, transported and then treated at an urban waste water treatment plant, to remove components harmful to the environment and human health, before the water is returned to nature (EEA, 2018). The importance of access to clean water and sanitation is embedded in Goal 6 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN, n.d). Supplying clean water and collecting waste water has required huge investment across Europe in recent decades. In this briefing, we show that challenges to securing sustainable water in future, such as climate change, present new opportunities for resource efficiency and improved environmental protection.
Climate change affects agriculture in a number of ways. Changes in temperature and precipitation as well as weather and climate extremes are already influencing crop yields and livestock productivity in Europe. Weather and climate conditions also affect the availability of water needed for irrigation, livestock watering practices, processing of agricultural products, and transport and storage conditions. Climate change is projected to reduce crop productivity in parts of southern Europe and to improve the conditions for growing crops in northern Europe. Although northern regions may experience longer growing seasons and more suitable crop conditions in future, the number of extreme events negatively affecting agriculture in Europe is projected to increase.
The report assesses bathing water quality in 2018, indicating where the quality of bathing water is expected to be good in 2019. The report was compiled using information from more than 21 000 bathing waters in the 28 EU Member States. It also covers bathing waters in Albania and Switzerland. The report is a joint production of the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Commission.
Moving towards a clean, non-toxic marine environment. This assessment represents a first attempt to map contamination 'problem areas' and 'non-problem areas' at the scale of Europe's seas, while also exploring whether Europe has broken some of the trends for long‑established hazardous substances.
This report analyses recent data about emissions from industry directly to water bodies as well as to sewage systems and onward to UWWTPs. The analysis focuses on the latest information for 2016, when around 3 600 industrial facilities reported at least one direct or indirect pollutant release to water to the E-PRTR database.
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