On 4 February, the European Commission published its report on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by the EU Member States. The report stresses that significant improvements are needed to bring European waters to a better ecological and chemical status by 2027.
The evaluation shows that only 39.5% of surface water bodies in the EU have good ecological status and only 26.8% meet the chemical standards. To improve water quality, the Commission makes a series of recommendations to the Member States. These include stricter enforcement of legislation, better financing of water management measures, and greater efforts to reduce chemical pollution and water consumption.
Specific conclusions and recommendations for the Netherlands
For the situation in the Netherlands, the Commission concludes that most surface water bodies are not in good status. The situation for groundwater bodies is more positive; the majority are in good status. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the groundwater used for drinking water production. The Dutch WFD Mid-term Evaluation also shows that only a small share of (ground)water bodies intended for drinking water production are currently in good status. Moreover, groundwater bodies are showing signs of ‘ageing’; increasingly, low concentrations of a cocktail of chemical substances are being detected. This constitutes a direct breach of the WFD’s standstill principle, which prohibits deterioration of water quality.
The report also contains specific recommendations for the Netherlands. The European Commission states that the Netherlands must show more ambition and act more swiftly to meet the WFD objectives. This means, among other things:
- Developing more ambitious programmes of measures and considering making measures mandatory;
- Paying greater attention to reducing chemical pollution in water;
- Stricter monitoring and, where necessary, updating permits for wastewater treatment plants and industrial discharges.
Improvement of drinking-water sources necessary
Both the Commission’s implementation report and the Dutch WFD Mid-term Evaluation show that there are still major challenges to achieving the WFD objectives. Pressure on the quality of drinking water sources from pollution originating from agriculture, industry, and households has only increased in recent years. Drinking water companies are being forced to invest more and more in purification. Vewin argues that the government should take additional measures to safeguard the quality of drinking water sources, such as better aligning the authorisation of substances (such as pesticides) with the WFD objectives, updating and tightening permits for discharges of substances of concern and PFAS, and strengthening supervision and enforcement with a focus on drinking water sources.