December 13, 2024
Lillian McCullum
The prevalence of droughts is increasing globally, causing rising concerns over water scarcity – an issue of great concern in Southern Europe. According to the European Environment Agency, 29% of the EU territory was impacted by water scarcity in 2019. This number is higher than the previous 15 years despite a 15% decrease in water abstraction since 2000 (“Water scarcity conditions in Europe…” 2023). A report from the Joint Research Center showed that in 2022 the Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) signaled 47% of Europe exhibiting warning conditions and 17% alert conditions (Stupazzini 2024).1 As scientific understanding of the environment has increased, the effort to regulate and manage bodies of water and the use of water has as well. In Europe, the EU has sought to do this effectively and efficiently by creating community policy. These community policies aim to allow European countries to collaborate more effectively on shared water sources and support the responsible use of water resources in the face of regional concerns over its availability and safety.
The EU has sought to integrate water regulation into comprehensive community policy through a number of policies. The EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Water Framework Directive (WFD) are, as of now, the two primary pieces of legislation for EU wide water regulation. These regulatory policies are increasingly important as droughts are on the rise because the overexploitation of available water resources exacerbates the effects of droughts (“Water scarcity and droughts” ND). The WFD’s essential function is to protect and restore bodies of water to good status and prevent deterioration – ‘good status’ referring to both chemical and ecological status – which it achieves through the use of River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) and Programmes of Measures (PoMs) (“Water Framework Directive” ND). CAP
protects water by encouraging farmers to use water in a safe and sustainable way (“Safe water” ND). CAP functions primarily through monetary incentives for countries who conform, as well as so-called ‘eco-schemes’ which incentivize the cooperation of individual farmers (“Safe water” ND). The latest edition of CAP legislation (CAP 2023-27) introduced stronger protections for water and increased support for sustainable farming practices in order to bring the agricultural sector more in line with the European Green Deal (“Safe water” ND). Although these are the primary legislation on the topic, the WFD and CAP are supported by, among others, the Environmental Quality Standards Directive (EQSD) and the Groundwater Directive (GWD) (“Water Framework Directive” ND).
As with other policy areas, the EU faces challenges to the implementation of integrated water policy. In member states which experience little regional concern with water pollution and/or scarcity, there is a lack of participation in water conservation and protection efforts by the public. This can be seen in the Netherlands, where, in the first phase of the WFD’s implementation they struggled with, among other things, technocratic public participation – that is, participation via industry implementation rather than via individual choice (van der Heijden 2014). This lack of participation from the public was ascribed to a lack of care for and understanding of why the initiatives were important (van der Heijden 2014). Among the other challenges the Netherlands faced in the first phase was the need for new administrative arrangements and the enforced strict time frame (van der Heijden 2014). These culminated in an unnecessary doubling of institutional layers as well as institutional conflict over the mismatch between the ecological boundaries of river basins and the traditional pre-WFD institutional water-management structures (van der Heijden 2014).
This is contrasted by the near forced participation in the policies that is exhibited by citizens of states like the MED9 – France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, Spain and Slovenia – whose daily lives are impacted by the effects of drought and water scarcity. That is not to say, however, that non-drought-experiencing countries are the only ones struggling to make strides in water protections despite the WFD and CAP provisions for it. In the Guadalquivir River Basin in Southern Spain, climate change couples with the expansion of irrigated perennial crops to increase the region’s vulnerability to drought and water scarcity (Tocados-Franco 2023). The region saw a decrease in relative irrigation supply from 0.70 to 0.56 between 2000 and 2021, which has forced farmers to adopt deficit irrigation technologies, such as the ones the Spanish Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, touted at a MED9 meeting earlier this year (Tocados-Franco 2023; “Minister Planas…” 2024).
Although imperfect, EU regulatory policies are working to control the issue of water scarcity in the face of more frequent drought conditions. Because of their success in stabilizing water use and addressing pollution in Europe, the WFD, CAP, and the EU’s other policies are cited in recommendations for countries struggling with water management. In China as officials attempt to counter widespread, advanced pollution of water resources that occurred as a result of rapid industrial development, experts on environment at the University of Beijing cite European efforts as a model for potential Chinese action (Zhou et. al 2014). Despite being used as an example for countries looking to improve their water management, there is relatively little comparative work on the EU’s management plans over time (Boeuf 2016). Even without scholarship on the progression of the bloc’s water policy, it continues to evolve; CAP 2023-27 reinforces performance monitoring and evaluation framework, facilitating greater accountability, and transitions to a performance-based delivery model (“Safe water” ND). Additionally, the
Commission passed support for research and innovation – on water, nutrients, and waste in agriculture – to develop new techniques for the sustainable management of water (“Safe water” ND). The continuous progression of existing policy shows the bloc’s confidence that their water policy is working, even if it is yet to be perfect.
Further Reading
- Combined Drought Indicator (CDI)
- A bibliometric review on the Water Framework Directive twenty years after its birth
- Studying the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Europe: a meta-analysis of 89 journal articles
- Minister Planas shares Spain’s experience in the efficient use of water for agriculture and digitalisation of irrigation systems
Works Cited
Boeuf, B., and O. Fritsch. 2016. “Studying the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Europe: a meta-analysis of 89 journal articles.” Ecology and Society 21(2):19. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08411-210219
“Combined Drought Indicator (CDI).” Copernicus – Europe’s Eyes on Earth, 2022, drought.emergency.copernicus.eu/data/factsheets/factsheet_combinedDroughtIndicator_v3.pdf.
“EU officials pledge to develop more water-saving technologies in farming as droughts worsen.” Associated Press, Sept. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/climate-drought-water-conservation-d9d39953061011f58dfc87b9dc677ec7. 3 Sept. 2024
“Safe water.” European Commission, https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/sustainability/environmental-sustainability/natural-resources/water_en#:~:text=The%20common%20agricultural%20policy%20helps,health%20and%20quality%20of%20life. 5 Sept. 2024.
Stupazzini, Riccardo. “European Union Regulation of Water Stress Risks.” European Journal of Risk Regulation 15.1 (2024): 102–121. Web.
Tocados-Franco, Enrique, et al. “Water Policy Implications of Perennial Expansion in the Guadalquivir River Basin (Southern Spain).” Agricultural Water Management, vol. 282, May 2023, p. N.PAG. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2023.108286.
van der Heijden, Jeroen, et al. “Contrasting Stories on Overcoming Governance Challenges: The Implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive in the Netherlands.” Local Environment, vol. 19, no. 3, Mar. 2014, pp. 318–33. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2013.790349.
“Water Framework Directive.” European Commission, https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/water/water-framework-directive_en. 30 Aug. 2024.
“Water scarcity and droughts.” European Commission, https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/water/water-scarcity-and-droughts_en#:~:text=In%20some%20regions%2C%20the%20severity,water%20abstraction%20or%20water%20use. 30 Aug. 2024.
“Water scarcity conditions in Europe (Water exploitation index plus).” European Environment Agency, Jan 2023, https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/use-of-freshwater-resources-in-europe-1. 4 Sept. 2024.
Zhou, Y., Khu, ST., Xi, B. et al. “Status and challenges of water pollution problems in China: learning from the European experience.” Environ Earth Sci 72, 1243–1254 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-013-3042-3.