Executive summary

The European Union (EU) has been strengthening its political and socio-economic relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine under the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) with the aim of supporting political, economic and social reforms.

The overarching objective of the ENI SEIS II East project, which is supported by the EU under the European Neighbourhood Instrument, is to support the further implementation of the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) principles and practices in the six Eastern Partnership countries. The specific objective is to strengthen the regular production of environmental indicators and assessment as a contribution towards knowledge-based policy-making and good governance in the field of the environment. The European Environment Agency (EEA) implemented the project in strong collaboration with a network of national agencies operating in various areas of environment. This report is one of the outputs of the ENI SEIS II East Project, aiming to provide a regional overview on state of freshwater resources and water use in the Eastern Partnership countries.

Water is one of the major environmental concerns in the region as elsewhere. Significant water quality deterioration and water shortages are increasingly common in the Region. Insufficient policy measures in public water supply, over- abstraction and extremely high water loss in conveyance systems are some of the major common issues putting pressure on water resources and are becoming an indispensable part of regional political tension. Limited connection to waste water treatment – and low level of treatment efficiency in existing facilities – in addition to diffuse runoff from agriculture constitute key threats to water quality across the region. Almost all large basins in the Region are transboundary. However, lack of comparable and harmonised data and information, and insufficient expert and institutional capacity, are restricting the countries from undertaking assessments on the state of water resources, trends, pressures and drivers.

Almost 10 years has passed since the publication of the EEA Assessment of Assessments report on Europe’s environments (EEA, 2011). One of the key issues highlighted in the report was the insufficient usage of existing environmental data and information for assessing water resources of European regions. Hence, taking stock of what has been addressed by the EEA report (EEA, 2011), the activities under the EU funded project Implementation of the Shared Environmental Information System principles and practices in the Eastern Partnership countries (ENI SEIS II East) aimed to fill those gaps in assessing state, trend, drivers and pressures on water resources via developing a set of water indicators from the UNECE environmental indicators (UNECE, 2007a).

This report has been built on selected water indicators from –so called- UNECE environmental indicators (UNECE, 2012a). The development of environmental indicators was done in close partnership with various UNECE structures and entities such as the UNECE Joint Task Force on Environmental Indicators (JTFEI) and the UNECE Working Group on Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (WGEMA).  

The overall objective with this report is to present a regional overview rather than undertaking country comparisons. The indicators which provide main inputs into the development of this report have been implemented by the national experts of the national water agencies of the countries, following the same methodology as the EEA core set of water indicators.

The report explores the answer to various policy questions e.g. availability and sustainability of renewable freshwater resources, socio-economic pressures on water resources, provision of clean and safe water  to the public, managing waste water etc.

Overall, the gross domestic product (GDP) for the region has increased over the years, but in many cases at the expense of deteriorating water quality or over-abstraction surface and ground waters. Much remains to be further developed towards integrated management of water resources in the Region.