Water laws of european union

1. WATER LAWS OF THE
EUROPEAN UNION
Presented by
Chandra Vanshi Thakur
17WM60R07
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Chandra vanshi Thakur, School of Water Resources 126-Aug-17

2. Contents
Introduction
Water supply and sanitation laws
Conflicts
Comparison with Indian water laws
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3. Introduction
European Union
Initially formed in 1957 by treaty of Rome
 EU formally established in 1992 by Treaty of Maastricht
 EU Consists of 28 member states linked by a politico-
economic union
Common laws and policies are devised for various sectors
like Agriculture, Fisheries, Trade etc
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4. Water facts of EU
Among all the continent, Europe comprises of abundant
water resources
About 65% of water demand is fulfilled by groundwater
and 35% by surface water
In countries like Denmark and Iceland, where surface water
remains frozen most part of The year, 90% demand is
fulfilled by groundwater
About 64% of total water contributes to the Agriculture
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Croatia, recorded the highest freshwater resources (with
a long-term average of 26200 m³ per inhabitant)
Finland and Sweden had the next highest volumes of
freshwater resources per inhabitant, at around 20000 m³
Countries like UK, France, Germany, Italy had
relatively low volumes, at around slightly less than 3000
m³

6. Major Rivers in Europe
RIVER NAME LENGTH (in
meters)
SINKS INTO MAIN FEATURE
VOLGA 3692 Caspian Sea Longest River
DANUBE 2860 Black Sea Lifeline of
Europe
URAL 2428 Caspian Sea Supports various
steel industries
DNIEPER 2290 Black Sea Hydroelectric
Projects
RHINE 1236 North Sea Inland
Navigation
ELBE 1091 North Sea Inland
Navigation
LOIRE 1013 Atlantic Ocean Longest River of
France
SEINE 776 Atlantic Ocean Important for
navigation in
France
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8. Water supply and Sanitary Laws
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9. The water policy of European union is
codified into following directives:
The bathing waters directive of 1976 replaced by The
directive 2006
The urban waste water treatment directive of 21 may 1991
concerning discharges of municipal and some
industrial waste waters
The drinking water directive of 3 November 1998
concerning potable water quality
The water framework directive of 23 October 2000
concerning water resources management
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10. Bathing waters Directive
The purpose of this directive is to preserve, protect and
improve the quality of the environment and to protect
human health by complementing directive 2000
This directive lays down provisions for:
 The monitoring and classification of bathing water
quality
 The management of bathing water quality; and
 The provision of information to the public on
bathing water quality
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11. Urban waste water treatment directive
This directive was laid out on 21 may, 1991
This directive concerns the collection, treatment and
discharge of urban waste water and the treatment and
discharge of waste water from certain industrial sectors
The objective of the directive is to protect the environment
from the adverse effects of the waste water discharges
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14. Drinking water Directive
This directive came out into play on 3 November, 1998
The major concern of this directive was availability of
quality potable drinking water to the people of European
union
The objective of this directive was to protect human health
from the adverse effects of any contamination of water
intended for human consumption by ensuring that it is
wholesome and clean
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15. Water framework Directive
The water framework directive introduced in 2000,
some new and ambitious objectives to protect and
restore aquatic ecosystems as a basis for ensuring the
long term sustainable use of water
The key objective of the WFD was to achieve good
status for all water bodies by 2015. this comprised the
objectives of good ecological and chemical status for
surface waters and good quantitative and chemical
status for groundwater
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16. CONFLICTS
MERITS
Ensures quality supply of
water to the residents along
with maintaining harmony
with the environment
Transparent and unbiased
nature which ensured
majority of the standards to
be met by deadlines
DEMERITS
Some problems regarding
implementation of these
directives also, especially in
the southern European
countries
Eutrophication of the Baltic
sea, north sea and
considerable parts of
the Mediterranean thus
remains a “severe problem”
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17. MERITS
According to a report of
2015, 96 % of 21000
bathing sites met the
minimum requirements and
more than 84 % met the
more stringent “excellent”
level
Also laid huge amount of
stress of public
participation which made
the people aware of their
rights
DEMERITS
25 out of 556 cities of EU
don’t have a waste water
treatment plant at all and
their discharges are still
heavily polluting the
nearby water source
Many of EU country don’t
achieved full compliance
with the drinking water
directive
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18. Comparison with Indian laws
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19.  The major difference between the two lies in the level of
participation of public masses
 Transparency in Laws and public participation is more,
whereas Indian laws do not enforce such kind of things
 European laws not only ensures supply of very safe water
to people but it does keeping in mind minimum damage to
the environment is being done
 India have a partial centralized system of water supply and
whereas most of the EU member states have decentralized it
to municipalities or privatized it
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20.  Germany, 100% of the population has access to EU standard safe
drinking water through the water supply networks or private
wells
 94% and 77% of waste water is collected and treated for reuse in
Germany and Spain
 India due to its high population growth is lagging behind in
supplying its citizens with safe water
 Even metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai face water shortage
problems
 Another major difference lies in the water tariffs set up by the
governing bodies. India charges very nominal amount of water
supply and sanitary bill compared to the European countries
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