7.     Ecological status and water quality

Water is a key resource for our quality of life, industrial and agricultural production as well as the condition of many ecosystems in Europe. The quality of water in Europe is influenced by direct and diffuse pollution from urban and rural settlements, industrial emissions as well as the agriculture sector. Due to the overall progress in the treatment of urban waste water, diffuse pollution from agriculture is now the single most important source of pollution, in particular nutrient pollution,  in Europe. Yet, despite the importance given to reducing pollution in recent environmental legislation, concentrations of pollutants in many European waters have remained high – illustrated by the results in the previous chapters that a large proportion of European water bodies are affected by pressures from diffuse and point source pollutants.

The status and pressure assessments in the previous chapters revealed that many European surface water bodies currently fail the Water Framework Directive’s objective. This raises the following questions:

• What should be done to achieve good ecological status?
• How can nutrient and pollutant input be reduced and water quality improved? And
• How are the hydromorphological pressures lowered and the status of altered habitats improved?