EU Water Policy Research Articles

В УКРАЇНІ ВИДАНО ПЕРШИЙ НАВЧАЛЬНИЙ ПОСІБНИК З ГІДРОГРАФІЇ ТА ВОДНИХ РЕСУРСІВ ЄВРОПИ (2023 Р.)

The article presents and analyzes the training manual “Hydrography and Water Resources of Europe”, published by the professor Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv V.K. Khilchevskyi in 2023. The first training manual k published in Ukraine on this topic briefly outlines the basics of EU water policy, characterizes rivers, lakes and reservoirs on a regional basis (UN geoscheme – Northern, Western, Southern and Eastern Europe), as well as seas washing the shores of Europe. The problems of global water resources are considered, the ranking of European countries in terms of renewable water resources and the index of water resource exploitation is given. In the context of all directions, questions on Ukraine were considered. In Europe, hydrographic surveys are of great importance for water management. In particular, according to the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) adopted in 2000, the hydrographic zoning of countries’ territories is an important step for creating river basin management plans in the implementation of water policy. This approach is used by both EU member states and other European countries that have taken the provisions of the EU WFD as the basis for their activities. Water resources in a broad sense are all the waters of the hydrosphere, including the waters of the oceans and seas, rivers and lakes, groundwater, and glaciers. In practice, both in Europe and in many countries of the world, the concept of “water resources” is interpreted in a narrower sense – these are fresh surface and groundwater that are in water bodies and are used or can be used by humans. Water resources are managed according to the basin principle, but water resources are taken into account within individual countries. For. structuring the presentation of the material in this tutorial, the division of Europe into subregions according to the UN geoscheme was chosen, according to which 4 subregions are distinguished: Northern Europe; Western Europe; Southern Europe; Eastern Europe – a total of 44 countries whose capitals are located in this part of the world. But geopolitically, Europe includes 50 sovereign states. Their territory is within the framework of the general definition of Europe, they have membership in international European organizations. The content of the manual is structured into four parts: I – Physical-geographical and economic-geographical characteristics of Europe; II – EU Environmental and Water Policy; ІІІ – Hydrography; IV – Water resources. The training manual is intended for students enrolled in the educational program “Management and Ecology of Water Resources”, specialty 103 “Earth Sciences”. It can also be useful for students of other educational programs of specialties 103 “Earth Sciences” and 106 “Geography”, which study water resources.

Human-Rights Approach to Water in the European Union on the 10th Anniversary of the ‘Right2Water’ Initiative

The 20 principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights adopted by the EU in 2017 include the right to access such basic services as water, sanitation, energy or transport. In the face of the climate crisis, the first of these rights is becoming a service which, due to the progression of global warming, could lose its universal and easily accessible nature. It seems reasonable to ask about the chances of developing a ‘right to water’ within the framework of the EU’s system, which would unambiguously oblige the public authorities to ensure access to this right. The trigger for this research was the ‘Right2Water’ European citizens’ initiative addressed to the European Commission in 2013, which contained postulates to recognise access to water as a human right. Ten years after the launch of this procedure, it is reasonable to acknowledge the verification of the actions taken by the EU and whether the evolving EU water policy can be assessed as being oriented towards ensuring the right to water for all EU-inhabitants. The aim of this paper justifies the use of legal-dogmatic research methodology. Regarding the analysis of legal acts, the rules of legal hermeneutics were applied, esp. grammar and teleological interpretation.

Invasive Alien Species of Benthic Macroinvertebrates and Fish in the Bulgarian Sector of the Danube River—Results of the Joint Danube Survey 4 (JDS4)

The aim of this study was to assess the status of aquatic invasive alien species (IAS) in the shoreline zone of the Bulgarian sector of the Danube River, Danube tributaries, and adjacent standing water bodies in the frame of the Joint Danube Survey 4 (JDS4). Seven benthic macroinvertebrates and seven fish IAS were identified. The crayfish Faxonius limosus was frequently found and abundant in the tributaries. The mussels Corbicula fluminea, Dreissena rostriformis bugensis, and Sinanodonta woodiana dominated in the Danube River and the middle and lower reaches of the tributaries, while the fish Carassius gibelio, Perccottus glenii, and Lepomis gibbosus were most abundant in the standing water bodies. The integrated biocontamination estimated by taxonomic groups (crayfish, molluscs, and fish), sampling methods, and type of water bodies ranged from moderate in the shoreline zone of the Danube River, through moderate to high in the canals and lakes, to severe in the Danube tributaries and the reservoirs. The results demonstrate the importance of IAS in the assessment of the ecological status/potential of the water bodies in the DRB. The comprehensive evaluation of the aquatic IAS pressure will provide valuable information and support for the implementation of the national and EU IAS and water policies in the DRB.

Understanding collective action for the achievement of EU water policy objectives in agricultural landscapes: Insights from the Institutional Design Principles and Integrated Landscape Management approaches

This paper aims to identify drivers and barriers to the achievement of EU water policy objectives in the agricultural sector by adopting an institutional perspective on water quality management at the landscape level. We apply a conceptual framework combining Integrated Landscape Management (ILM) and Institutional Design Principles (IDP) perspectives to analyze cooperation initiatives involving water suppliers and agricultural stakeholders to protect drinking water catchments from agricultural diffuse pollution. Three cases representing different forms of cooperation in rural landscapes in France were investigated on the basis of primary data collected at the local, water-basin and national levels. The results show that the success of multi-stakeholder collective action depends on both local factors such as characteristics of the water resource and stakeholders (knowledge, resources, trust and social capital) and on factors linked to the EU and national water and agricultural policy frameworks. In addition to the identification of drivers of and constraints on the implementation of EU water policy in agricultural landscapes, the analysis highlights the conceptual added value in combining the IDP and ILM approaches to understand policy implementation processes at the landscape level.

How the European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Water and Sanitation is a Human Right!’ Changed EU Discourse on Water Services Provision

In 2010 the United Nations General Assembly recognized the human right to water and sanitation in what is seen as a historical vote by water activists. Implementation of the right to water is imperative to achieve sustainable development. In 2011 the regulation for a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) entered into force in the European Union. With such an initiative it is possible to propose an issue for European legislation by collecting one million signatures from citizens in at least seven Member States. The European federation of trade unions in the public services sector (EPSU) decided to take up the challenge to organise such an ECI and formed a diverse coalition of organisations and water activists that became known as ‘Right2Water.’ Their proposal was ‘to implement the human right to water and sanitation in European law.’ Although it was successful in achieving the required number of supporters, the European Commission answered that implementation of the human right to water was to be left to Member States and that there was no need to change existing legislation. The Right2Water movement aimed not as much to change legislation but more to challenge EU neoliberal policies and shift them from a ‘market approach’ to a ‘rights-based approach.’ This chapter looks at the factors that contributed to the success of ‘Right2Water,’ how the ideological debate around the human right to water took place during the campaign and the impact it had on EU discourse as well as on EU water policy.

Implementation of EU Environmental Policy in Ukraine: Directions and Perspectives

The purpose of our article is to investigate the process of approximation of Ukrainian environmental legislation to EU law. The range of issues that Ukraine has reformed in the field of environment has been investigated. The state of compliance of Ukrainian environmental legislation with the commitments under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was revealed. The problems of further effective application in practice of the adopted regulatory legal acts, strategies and action plans were disclosed. Particular attention was paid to water legislation and legislation in the field of waste management. The current state of the sphere of solid waste management in Ukraine was revealed. The state of adaptation of Ukrainian water legislation to the requirements of the European Union law has been investigated. Ways to improve Ukraine's environmental policy on waste and water policy based on European experience were substantiated. The methods of comparative law, statistical, analytical and logical analysis were used.
 Keywords: EU Environmental policy, environmental law, EU water policy, EU waste policy, Ukrainian environmental legislation

Water Quality and the Effectiveness of European Union Policies

This article is a first attempt to examine the effectiveness of EU water policies in a comparative perspective. It provides a systematic analysis of the relationship between EU water policies and the quality of national water resources for 17 EU member states over a period of 23 years (1990–2012). The analysis reveals that EU policies have contributed to the water quality in the member states. Moreover, it finds that decentralized implementation processes enhance the effectiveness of top-down policy instruments while not making a significant difference for bottom-up policy instruments. Administrative capacities and (neo-)corporatist arrangement seem to play some, yet only minor, role in determining the effectiveness of EU water policies. This way, the article speaks to the literature on EU compliance and implementation and the broader public policy literature.

Relationship between ecological condition and ecosystem services in European rivers, lakes and coastal waters

We quantify main ecosystem services (i.e. the contribution of ecosystems to human well-being) provided by rivers, lakes, coastal waters and connected ecosystems (riparian areas and floodplains) in Europe, including water provisioning, water purification, erosion prevention, flood protection, coastal protection, and recreation. We show European maps of ecosystem service capacity, flow (actual use), sustainability and efficiency. Then we explore the relationship between the services and the ecosystem condition at the European scale, considering the ecological status of aquatic ecosystems, reported under the EU Water Framework Directive, as a measure of the ecosystem integrity and biodiversity.Our results indicate that a higher delivery of the regulating and cultural ecosystem services analysed is mostly correlated with better conditions of aquatic ecosystems. Conversely, the use of provisioning services can result in pressures on the ecosystem. This suggests the importance of maintaining good ecological condition of aquatic ecosystems to ensure the delivery of ecosystem services in the future. These results at the continental scale, although limited to the ecosystem services under analysis, might be relevant to consider when investing in the protection and restoration of aquatic ecosystems called for by the current EU water policy and Biodiversity Strategy and by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Groundwater Management in Ukraine and the EU

The purpose of our scholarly work is to explore legal regulation of sustainable use and protection of groundwater resources in Ukraine and the EU. Our study is organized around the following main issues: groundwater management, legal regulation of monitoring of groundwater resources, protection of groundwater from nitrate contamination. In this paper we review the current situation in groundwater policy in Ukraine, discuss the problems related to this situation and present recommendations for their solution. Based on comparison analysis differences and common problems of protection of groundwater resources in Ukraine and EU member states were determined. Ways of improving the mechanism of groundwater monitoring in Ukraine were proposed. Prevention of water pollution due to runoff of nitrates from agricultural lands was considered. Keywords: EU water policy, groundwater, water legislation, water management, water quality

The future of European water management: Demonstration of a new WFD compliant framework to support sustainable management under multiple stress

The Water Framework Directive (WFD), which is the most comprehensive instrument of EU water policy, is more relevant than ever. Sixty percent of Europe's surface water bodies still fail to achieve good ecological status and a multitude of new stressors continue to emerge. A sustained and wholehearted water management effort is therefore of highest priority. Here, we present a new biological assessment approach specifically designed to safeguard sustainable water management under multiple stress. The framework contains three independent elements: 1) an ecological assessment system based on community abundance and composition to quantify ecological status; 2) a diagnostic tool to identify cause(s) of ecological degradation; 3) a management platform to guide the choice of relevant mitigation measures for improvement of the ecological status. The proposed framework is fully compliant with the WFD and currently applied in the assessment of aquatic plant communities in Danish streams. Importantly, the approach presented is not restricted to specific taxonomic groups or ecosystem types but is an example of how a simple approach can bring the conceptual idea of the WFD – that community characteristics in unimpacted, type-specific water bodies should be the backbone in ecological assessments – into practice.

THE EU WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS FOR IMPLEMENTATION IN UKRAINE

The purpose of our scholarly work is to carry out the analysis of main trends of development and features of harmonization of Ukrainian water legislation with the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). Limited analysis of the WFD was made and challenges for its implementation in Ukraine were explored. Our study is organized around three major themes: river basin management, water resource protection and water monitoring. As a result of the study proposals for the improvement of Ukrainian environmental legislation were made. Based on comparison analysis differences and common problems of implementation of the WFD in Ukraine and EU member states were determined and recommendations for implementation of successful experience of EU countries in Ukraine were made. Keywords: EU water policy, water legislation, water management, water quality, water resources

The XXIX Nordic Water conference

The XXIX Nordic Water conference was held at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, on 8–10 August 2016. The university is one of the most liberal and modern academic institutions in Lithuania, boasting an exciting history, nurturing and continuing deep-rooted traditions, playing a leading role not just in Lithuania, but also the entire Baltic and European intellectual and cultural sphere. In total, over 80 abstracts were submitted from 16 countries, including Nordic and Baltic countries, where most contributions came from, as well as China, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Japan, Poland, Portugal and Russia. The main topic was the ‘role of hydrology towards water resources sustainability’, with scientists from different countries exchanging their views on assessment and prediction of key variables of water cycle, as well as sharing their scientific knowledge on advanced methods and modelling technology. The conference themes revolved around hydrological implications of climate and environmental change; the role of hydrology on terrestrial ecosystems and greenhouse gas emissions; advanced methods and technology in hydrological modelling; agricultural, forest and urban green water management; interactions between surface and groundwater; hydrology and EU water policy with a special focus on water quality and flood risk management; water ecology and restoration of disturbed water ecosystems; and hydropower and the use of water resources (renewable energy sources). Changes in water …

Ecosystem services for water policy: Insights across Europe

In this research we explored how the concepts and approaches of ecosystem services are currently used in water management in Europe, in the application of River Basin Management Plans (RBMP) developed for the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). Five case studies have been considered, located in the River Basin Districts of the Po river (Italy), Scotland (United Kingdom), Scheldt river (Belgium), Danube river (Romania), Sado and Mira rivers and Ribeiras do Algarve (Portugal). These cases represent different regional contexts of application of this EU water policy, with specific socio-economic drivers and environmental issues. Each case study has developed an operational framework to analyse ecosystem services in practice together with a group of local stakeholders. In each regional case, we examined how EU water policy and RBMPs are implemented, considered legal and planning instruments from the national to the local scale, and we analysed the use of ecosystem service terms and concepts in the relevant planning instruments. In parallel, we explored the view of local stakeholders and water managers on the topic, collecting their opinion on three major aspects: the usefulness of the concepts and approaches of ecosystem services for WFD river basin management plans, the risks and benefits of their use, and the knowledge needs to put the concepts into practice. The major drawback of the ecosystem service approach seems to be the challenge for practitioners of understanding new concepts and methodologies, while the major advantages are that it highlights all the hidden benefits of a water body in good health and promotes multi-functionality and sustainability in water management. The results of this study provide a picture across Europe of the current use of the concepts of ecosystem services in the RBMP and relevant insight on the opinion of local stakeholders and water managers.

Embedding sustainability literacy in the legal curriculum: reflections on the Plymouth model

Plymouth Law School was an early adopter of the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) credo, and embarked on a series of measures designed to embed sustainability in its law curricula, which have since been refined and developed. This article is intended to supplement the theoretical ESD discourse by offering a reflective assessment of our practice and experiences in embedding sustainability by utilising the Foundation subjects of Legal Systems and Skills and European Union Law. In the case of the latter, sustainability is embedded as a delivery vehicle through which students are encouraged to critically explore the practical operation and efficacy of EU enforcement methods, principally from the perspective of EU water policy and law. This builds upon engagement and exposure at level 4 and prior learning in the level 5 EU Law module itself. Importantly it also serves to cement the association of sustainability with legal imperatives and allows us to apply a different lens to sometimes abstract judicial creations such as direct effect and state liability within a tangible setting. Developing autonomy is an additional significant learning outcome of the programme. The approach we have developed is based on combining these two imperatives.

The Non-Regression Principle under EU and German Water Law ‘on the Ground’: A landmark decision of the European Court of Justice that leaves many questions open

For quite some time, non-regression of environmental law has been propagated as a principle of international, European and national environmental law. While emphasis has been placed on the ‘non-regression movement’ in a legal context in the sense that environmental legislation should not back-trap, the non-regression principle also applies to environmental quality as such. This appears plausible since non-regression of environmental law is not an objective in itself but serves to maintain and improve the quality of the environment. An expression of the non-regression principle has been established in the European Water Framework Directive of 2000 (WFD). In contrast to previous EU law, the Directive does not only regulate water pollution but also the ecological quality of water bodies. The case this article deals with concerned the deepening of three segments of the lower Weser in north-western Germany to make the river navigable for very large sea-going vessels up to the ports of Bremerhaven, Brake and Bremen. The legality of the planning permission was challenged by an environmental association before the Federal Administrative Court of Germany. The Federal Administrative Court assumed that the legislature had intended to implement the WFD without rendering German law more severe than the Directive. Therefore, it referred the case to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of the non-deterioration obligation under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). On the 1st July 2015, the Court rendered its judgement on the case. The decision can quite rightly be denominated as a landmark decision on EU water policy. This article assesses this decision of the European Court of Justice on the Non-Regression Principle and specifically addresses remaining open questions not answered by the court.

Virtual Water Flows in the EU27: A Consumption‐based Approach

SummaryThe use of water resources has traditionally been studied by accounting for the volume of water removed from sources for specific uses. This approach focuses on surface and groundwater only and it ignores that international trade of products with substantial amounts of embodied water can have an impact on domestic water resources. Using current economic and environmental data, we conduct a consumption‐based assessment of virtual water flows in the European Union (EU27). We find that the total water footprint (WF) of 2,280 cubic meters (m3) per capita for the EU27 mostly consists of green water use (precipitation stored as soil moisture), which is omitted in the conventional water accounting. Blue water (surface and groundwater.) and gray water use (the volume of freshwater needed to dilute pollutants to meet the applicable water quality standards), which are targeted by current EU water policies, only make up 32% of the total WF. We also find that Europeans imported 585 cubic kilometers (km3) (109 m3) of virtual water, or around 28% of global virtual water trade flows, in 2009. Within Europe, Germany is a key net importer of water through the trade of products in agriculture, the food industry, the chemical sector, and electricity generation. Countries in Southern and Eastern Europe have specialized in water‐intensive agriculture and are key exporters of virtual water despite experiencing physical scarcity of water. Our results suggest that there is a need to reconsider water policy in the EU to address water transfers occurring through trade and to grasp the interlinkages between green, blue, and gray water—which are likely to become more important in water‐scarce parts of Europe, with a changing climate.

Assessing water ecosystem services for water resource management

Ecosystem service concepts can offer a valuable approach for linking human and nature, and arguments for the conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems. Despite an increasing interest in the topic, the application of these concepts for water resource management has been hampered by the lack of practical definitions and methodologies. In this study we review and analyse the current literature and propose an approach for assessing and valuing ecosystem services in the context of water management. In particular, to study the link between multiple pressures, ecological status and delivery of ecosystem services in aquatic ecosystems under different scenarios of measures or future changes. This is of interest for the development of River Basin Management Plans under the EU Water Framework Directive. We provide a list of proxies/indicators of natural capacity, actual flow and social benefit for the biophysical assessment of the ecosystem services. We advocate the use of indicators of sustainability, combining information on capacity and flow of services. We also suggest methods for economic valuation of aquatic ecosystem for each service and spatial scale of application. We argue that biophysical assessment and economic valuation should be conducted jointly to account for the different values of ecosystem services (ecologic, social and economic) and to strengthen the recognition of human dependency on nature. The proposed approach can be used for assessing the benefits of conservation and restoration of aquatic ecosystems in the implementation of the EU water policy.

A hydro-economic model for the assessment of climate change impacts and adaptation in irrigated agriculture

Recent research has demonstrated the multidimensional and multi-scalar nature of climate change, evidencing the need to develop integrated tools for the analysis of impacts and adaptation. This research presents a hydro-economic model of the Middle-Guadiana basin, Spain, to assess potential effects of climate change on irrigated agriculture and options for adaptation. It combines a farm-based economic optimisation model with the hydrologic model WEAP, and represents the socio-economic, agronomic and hydrologic systems in a spatially-explicit manner covering all dimensions and scales relevant to climate change. Simulated scenarios include a severe A2 climate change scenario up to 2070, two policy-based adaptation scenarios, and autonomous adaptation. Results show that climate change may impact severely irrigation systems reducing water availability and crop yields, and increasing irrigation water requirements. The risk faced by farmers is determined by technology and water use efficiency but also by spatial location and decisions made in neighbouring irrigation areas. The analysis of adaptation strategies underscores the role of current EU water policy in facilitating adaptation. Overall, the applied framework proved to be a useful tool for supporting water and climate change policy-making. It contributes to improve understanding about potential impacts of climate change, multi-scale vulnerability and the scope for adaptation.

Potential impacts of climate change on flow regime and fish habitat in mountain rivers of the south-western Balkans

The climate change in the Mediterranean area is expected to have significant impacts on the aquatic ecosystems and particular in the mountain rivers and streams that often host important species such as the Salmo farioides, Karaman 1938. These impacts will most possibly affect the habitat availability for various aquatic species resulting to an essential alteration of the water requirements, either for dams or other water abstractions, in order to maintain the essential levels of ecological flow for the rivers. The main scope of this study was to assess potential climate change impacts on the hydrological patterns and typical biota for a south-western Balkan mountain river, the Acheloos. The altered flow regimes under different emission scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were estimated using a hydrological model and based on regional climate simulations over the study area. The Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) methodology was then used to assess the potential streamflow alterations in the studied river due to predicted climate change conditions. A fish habitat simulation method integrating univariate habitat suitability curves and hydraulic modeling techniques were used to assess the impacts on the relationships between the aquatic biota and hydrological status utilizing a sentinel species, the West Balkan trout. The most prominent effects of the climate change scenarios depict severe flow reductions that are likely to occur especially during the summer flows, changing the duration and depressing the magnitude of the natural low flow conditions. Weighted Usable Area-flow curves indicated the limitation of suitable habitat for the native trout. Finally, this preliminary application highlighted the potential of science-based hydrological and habitat simulation approaches that are relevant to both biological quality elements (fish) and current EU Water policy to serve as efficient tools for the estimation of possible climate change impacts on the south-western Balkan river ecosystems.

Investigating the use of environmental benefits in the policy decision process: a qualitative study focusing on the EU water policy

This paper presents the use of environmental benefits in the policy-making process in nine European countries. Growing competition for financial resources suggests that a precise understanding of the benefits provided by policies is needed. In particular, the environmental co-benefits that environmental policies offer must be more thoroughly investigated. Yet because there is often a focus on systems rather than individual species or specific environmental factors it becomes more difficult to characterise benefits. This paper shows that the role of environmental benefits to advise policy action differs across selected European countries. Environmental benefits are used at different stages of the policy cycle and for different purposes. In many cases they are not used to inform high level decision making but to stimulate public debate or to develop more targeted legislative proposals.