Questions and Answers on new EU rules on surface water and groundwater pollution

Why are up-to-date water pollution rules important?

Europe's almost 100,000 surface water bodies (streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, and reservoirs) and 12,000 groundwater bodies are vital as a source of drinking water, for healthy ecosystems and biodiverse nature, for farmers and industry, as a means of transportation and are indispensable for electricity and heat production. Since the early and mid-2000s, the Water Framework Directive, jointly with the Environmental Quality Standards Directive for surface waters, and Groundwater Directive, have provided the framework for their sustainable management.

Water can become unsafe and unfit for human use or irrigation when certain pollutants (also called ‘substances of concern'), such as pesticides, fertilisers, chemicals and salts enter the groundwater, as well as surface water bodies at levels above certain thresholds. The massive death of fish in the Oder river this summer underlined the importance of protecting our rivers and making them more resilient, as the combination of extreme climatic circumstances and pollution can quickly create biodiversity tipping points.

Rules need to be adapted regularly to allow authorities to respond to current and future pollution threats, both nationally and across borders. New scientific evidence is helping us better understand the health and environmental impacts of chemical substances or their mixtures.

The current legislation lists several polluting substances and groups of substances, as well as quality standards, or threshold values for each, that EU countries need to respect. So far, 53 substances have been included at EU level, mainly pesticides, industrial chemicals and metals for surface water, next to nitrates and active substances in pesticides for groundwater. However, this list of pollutants is incomplete as it omits some emerging substances with significant negative effects on the environment and human health. At the same time, some of the still listed substances are no longer present in significant quantities in the environment, and for others, the standards do not correspond to the latest evidence.

Finally, the Fitness Check of water legislation conducted in 2019 highlighted some other shortcomings in the way water pollution is monitored and reported on and the current proposal for revision addresses several of these shortcomings.

What does the Commission want to achieve with this proposal?

The Commission aims to protect European citizens and natural ecosystems from risks posed by pollutants and their mixtures by setting new standards for a series of such substances in surface and groundwater. There are also rules to make sure the standards are more often reached in practice.

More specifically, the proposal will:

• reduce concentrations of acutely toxic and/or persistent chemicals in surface and groundwater. Benefits will include reduced impacts on the environment, human health, pollinators and agriculture. The proposal complements other measures such as the recently proposed Sustainable use of pesticides Regulation, and the proposal for a revised legislation on wastewater that the Commission is also adopting today.
• improve the quality of oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, estuaries, and wetlands and of the services they deliver such as clean water, rich soils and a high biodiversity;
• limit or avoid future costs of water treatment by reducing pollution at the source;
• make chemical monitoring data more easily available, accessible and re-usable which will be useful for a better safety assessment of chemicals altogether;
• require that Member State authorities warn immediately downstream Member States in the same river basin, as well as the Commission, in case of exceptional circumstances of natural origin or force majeure, in particular extreme floods, prolonged droughts, or significant pollution incidents. This will provide faster and better response to events such as the Oder river pollution from summer 2022;
• work on tools to monitor and develop a policy response to problematic substances, such as microplastics and antimicrobial genes;
• support the ‘one substance, one assessment approach' where the same chemical is evaluated in the same way regarding the risk it poses by different EU laws and policies to limit regulatory burden;
• ensure more dynamic and up-to-date information on water status facilitated by the European Environment Agency.

The new rules recognise the cumulative or combined effects of mixtures shifting away from the current focus on individual substances solely. Furthermore, the proposal for new rules takes account of seasonal variations in the amount of pollution, such as in the case of pesticides used by farmers during planting seasons.

Member States will be required to take measures to reduce the presence of these pollutants. This means they need to broaden their monitoring programmes and take measures such as changing permits for industry, organising separate collection of pharmaceuticals, setting rules for the application of pesticides by farmers and households, or cleaning sediments and soil to avoid water pollution.

What are the key benefits of the proposed rules?

For citizens, the proposed rules will better protect human health against the effects of a range of pollutants, for example by reducing antimicrobial resistance. The new measures will also make the financing of water treatment fairer in line with the ‘polluter pays' principle. Preventive measures by industry (using different or fewer industrial chemicals) or farmers (for example by using other, or fewer pesticides) will make it easier for wastewater treatment plants or drinking water producers to clean water to legal standards.

For the water sector, the revision will ensure the ‘raw' water they need to clean, or use as a resource, will increasingly require less treatment, thus keeping related costs under control.

Overall, the benefits of applying these new rules will be much greater than the cost: healthcare costs and the cost of treating water and sludge will be lower, and ecosystems will be healthier. For example, PFAS exposure has been estimated to cost between € 52-84 billion in annual health costs in Europe (for instance related to diseases such as high cholesterol, immune system effects and cancer), while diclofenac can affect the development, growth and immune system of aquatic animals and mammals.

Alongside other EU legislation, already in place or planned under the European Green Deal, this initiative will generate significant benefits for European society and the environment.

How do these revised rules link to the revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive and Drinking Water Directive?

The proposal is fully consistent with other legislation in the water area, as well as other European Green Deal policies aiming at reducing pollution to a net zero by 2050. As regards the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD), for which a proposal for revision is presented at the same time as this proposal, micro-pollutants are a key challenge. The need to remove them at wastewater treatment facilities drives up the cost of treatment, and removal is not always possible. This proposal therefore aims to reduce emissions at source, for example when national authorities set conditions for industries to operate through permits.

The current proposal is also consistent with the recently revised Drinking Water Directive, which enters into force in 2023. By aiming to reduce pollution of surface and groundwaters, it will protect vital drinking water sources and reduce the cost of treatment. The Drinking Water Directive and this proposal address a wide range of pollutants, in particular pesticides, pharmaceuticals and the group of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

For more information

Press release

Questions and Answers on the Review of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive

Questions and Answers on the Revision of EU Ambient Air Quality Legislation

Factsheet on Surface water and groundwater pollutants

Proposals for a revision of the List of Groundwater and Surface Water Pollutants