4 Information to the public

4.1 Introduction

As a resource essential for life, it is important that the public has up-to date information on drinking and bathing water quality and about urban wastewater treatment. The European citizen initiative ‘Right2Water’ highlighted the level of interest in these issues. In response to this initiative, the European Commission committed itself to several actions to increase transparency  with regard to water quality, supply and treatment (EC 2014).

4.2 Reporting obligations

Member States report to the European Commission on the implementation of each of the water industry directives in regular reporting cycles, although the reporting frequencies differ between directives. The BWD requires annual reporting of monitoring data and significant management measures implemented or planned. For the UWWTD, data on discharges from UWWTPs have to be reported within 6 months of data requests (typically biannually) and on implemented measures every 2 years. Under the DWD reports on the quality of water intended for human consumption have to be submitted every three years. All data are submitted in digital format into WISE, the Water Information System for Europe. These data bases are used by the EEA for assessments and thematic reports on the environment. The EC checks the compliance of the data reported by Member States against the standards and requirements set out in the directives.

Data reported under the BWD includes results on monitoring of bathing water as well as information about the duration of the bathing season, abnormal situations, short-term pollution incidents and on bathing water locations. UWWTD data includes information on the size of the agglomerations, UWWTPs, the type of treatment, emission loads of pollutants, discharge points and spatial data on sensitive areas. The triennial DWD reports consist of general information on the number of water supply zones, number of residents and water sources, and the volume of drinking water supplied. Furthermore, Member States report on drinking water quality, and give information on non-compliance and exceedances of standards. If water does not comply with the standards, Member States need to report remedial actions (measures) as well as timeframes for the implementation of the measures.

Under the WFD the river basin management plans and the  programme of measures need to be reported every six years. The reported data includes e.g. information on significant pressures and impacts, the status of surface water and groundwater bodies, a dedicated programme of measures for those water bodies not yet in good status, justification of exemptions and information on coordination within the river basin district and public participation. Hence, the river basin management plans comprise a monitoring instrument for river basin managers, stakeholders and the European Commission.

Currently, the timetables for reporting are quite different, but there are efforts under way to streamline reporting, e.g. reporting for the WFD and Floods Directive have already been aligned.

4.3 Information dissemination

Each of the water industry directives requires that the public be informed of the results. The BWD describes the requirements for dissemination of information in Article 12. The EEA produces an annual report that publishes the results of the bathing water assessments.  Article 13 of the DWD covers information and reporting about water intended for human consumption. According to these articles, Member States have to ensure that the public has adequate and up-to-date information on the quality of bathing and drinking water. The UWWTD obliges the Member States to publish periodic reports about the disposal of wastewater and sludge under Article 16.

The interlinkage between the EU-level information and the national information platforms is important. EU-level information provides an overview at broader scale, enabling citizens and other stakeholders to compare the situation across the EU according to legislative reporting requirements. National information platforms can cater more directly to a Member State’s own needs and be updated more readily with the latest available information.

WISE is one of the main ways of making water information available to the public at the European level. It comprises a wide range of data and information collected by the EU institutions, and presents them through a set of map and data viewers.

The viewers are accessible through the EEA’s bathing water and UWWTD websites. They allow users to examine bathing water quality as well as UWWTD data across Europe. Users can check bathing water quality on an interactive map, download data for a selected country or region and make comparisons with previous years. They can examine various UWWTD data (agglomerations, discharge points, sensitive areas, treatment plants, etc.) on the UWWTD map viewer.