6. Pressures

6.1.    Overview of the pressures

Overall, 9843 Groundwater bodies (84%) are not affected by relevant pressures whereas 1816 groundwater bodies are affected from pressures upon groundwater quantitative status. 

On the other hand groundwater bodies with poor quantitative status are affected by 86% (578 Groundwater bodies) from the relevant pressures whereas only 14% (94 Groundwater bodies) are not classified as been affected from relevant pressures.

There are four significant pressures that are affecting groundwater quantitative status. These are water abstraction, saline or other intrusion, artificial recharge and other pressures that are mainly relative to chemical pressures. 

The most commonly reported pressures are water abstractions which constitute 11% of classified Groundwater bodies and 80% of Groundwater bodies which are in poor quantitative status. Saltwater intrusions comprise for 18 % of Groundwater bodies in poor status, artificial recharges with a very small percentage around 1% for Groundwater bodies in poor status and finally other pressures are responsible for about 5% of the Groundwater bodies in poor quantitative status.

Figure 6.5 is showing the proportion of the 4 relevant pressures upon groundwater for groundwater bodies in poor quantitative status. Abstractions are the main pressure upon Groundwater bodies with most countries reaching 80-100% of their Groundwater bodies in poor status been affected. These countries are Sweden, Estonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Malta, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, France, United Kingdom and Italy. Ireland is affected 60-80% from abstractions whereas Finland, Czech Republic and Finland 40-60%. Saltwater Intrusion is the second most significant pressure affecting groundwater bodies as mentioned above and is mainly have an effect on Cyprus and Malta with a percentage from 60-80%. Less influenced are Sweden and Italy with number of groundwater bodies affected from 20-40%. Finally, countries that the number of their groundwater bodies were affected from 0-20% are Germany, France, United Kingdom and Spain. Artificial recharge is only affecting France and Spain with a very insignificant percentage upon groundwater bodies in poor status of approximately 2%. At last, other pressures (which are probably related to chemical pressures) are affecting Finland and Czech Republic of about 40-60% of groundwater bodies in poor quantitative status. In Germany, France and Spain are only less that 5% of their groundwater bodies are affected from other pressures.

Note: Numbers in brackets indicate groundwater bodies in poor status. Countries are ranked by the percentage of water bodies not achieving good status.

Notes: The number of all groundwater bodies (Groundwater quantitative status); classified groundwater bodies (Relevant pressures for all classified GWBs) or groundwater bodies with poor quantitative status (Relevant pressures for GWBs in poor status) is given in brackets for each member state. Empty rows in the pressures plots mean that no data on pressures are reported from those member states.  “Relevant pressures” denotes the combination of the aggregated pressure types “ abstractions“,“ saltwater intrusion“, „artificial recharge“ and „others pressures“. . Artificial recharge and other pressures may not be the reason for not achieving good quantitative status – they can be linked to chemical status. Greece reported all GWBs with unknown status, RO, NL, LV, LU, and LT reported no GWBs in poor quantitative status. Countries are ranked by the percentage of water bodies not achieving good status.

6.2.    Reasons for failing good quantitative status

There are five reasons for failing good quantitative status and are summarised in the Table 6.1 below.

About 40% of the RBDs (43% = 57 of 135 reported RBDs), where information is available are failing good quantitative status of groundwater bodies.

The main reason for failing good quantitative status is the exceedance of the available groundwater resource by the long-term annual average rate of abstraction that may result in a decrease of groundwater levels.

Table 6.1 - Reasons for failing good quantitative status (number of RBDs concerned)

6.3.    Groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems (GWDTE)

For a Groundwater body to be of good status there should be no significant damage to a terrestrial ecosystem that depends on groundwater. From the groundwater bodies that were analyzed in this respect it was found that:

• From one third of the RBDs (45 of 135) groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems were reported.
• In one third (35) of the 119 RBDs which were assessed in detail, groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems were reported. In 19 RBMPs the needs of the Groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems were reported to be considered within the status assessment, and in 11 RBMPs it was not explicitly reported that their needs were to be considered.
• About 71% of the assessed RBDs (84 of 119) considered Groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems in the status assessment, although only 20% (21 RBDs) reported Groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems.
• Damage to Groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems as reason for poor groundwater quantitative status was reported by nine of the 119 RBDs which were assessed in detail.

6.4.    Saline or other intrusion

For a Groundwater body to be of good status it should be no long-term intrusion of saline (or other poor quality water) resulting from anthropogenically induced sustained water level or head change, reduction in flow or alteration of flow direction due to abstraction.

• About 69% of the RBDs (82 of 119) considered saline or other intrusion in the status assessment, but only 29 of them reported it as significant pressure.
• Nearly all (22) of the 29 RBDs which reported saline intrusion as significant pressure reported that they considered it in the status assessment.