Is Integrated Water Management on Track in the European Union?

• Date: 01 March 2018

48 ELR 10224 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 3-2018

I. Water Legislation in the

European Union

In the 1960s and 1970s, more tha n one European Union

(EU) Member State developed a patchwork of water-

related legislation. Most of the time, separate legislation

on the protection of surface waters against pollution, the

protection of groundwater, or the management of public

water courses was introduced.1 For example, in Belgium

after the Water Pollution Protection Act of 1950,2 which

was not successful due to lack of implementation by the

local authorities in charge of it, a new Act on the Protection

of Surface Water Against Pollution was enacted in 1971.3

In the sa me year, an Act on the Protection of Groundwa-

ter was promulgated,4 while an Act on the Management of

Non-Navigable Waters had been enacted in 1967.5 In addi-

tion, dierent pieces of legislation dealt with some aspects

of the management of navigable water courses.

On the EU level too, a piecemeal body of water legisla-

tion has been developed since the mid-1970s. Environmen-

tal quality standards for some categories of surface waters

were introduced by Directive 75/440/EEC of 16 June 1975

concerning the quality required of surface water intended

for the abstraction of drinking water in the Member States,

Directive 76/160/EEC of 8 December 1975 concerning the

quality of bathing water, Directive 78/659/EEC of 18 July

1978 on the quality of freshwaters needing protection or

improvement in order to support sh life, and Directive

1. J C. B  R. A K, I I

 E  S, IIUG DP 86-5, W P

C P: A C  F, W G,  

N (1986).

2. Wet van 11 maart 1950 op de bescherming van de oppervlaktewateren,

Belgisch Staatsblad 27 April 1950.

3. Wet van 26 maart 1971 op de bescherming van de oppervlaktewateren te-

gen verontreiniging, Belgisch Staatsblad 1 May 1971; http://www.ejustice.

just.fgov.be/eli/wet/1971/03/26/1971B32613/justel.

4. Wet van 26 maart 1971 op de bescherming van het grondwater, Belgisch

Staatsblad 1 May 1971.

5. Wet van 28 december 1967 betreende de onbevaarbare waterlopen,

Belgisch Staatsblad 5 January 1968; http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/eli/

wet/1967/12/28/1967122850/justel.

79/923/EEC of 30 October 1979 on the quality required

of shellsh waters.6

Notable was Directive 76/464/EEC of 4 May 1976

on pollution caused by certain dangerous substances dis-

charged into the aquatic environment, and its “daughter

directives” containing environmental quality standards

and limit values for the discharge of certain blacklisted

substances such as mercury, cadmium, hexachlorocyclo-

hexane, DDT, asbestos, and others. e Directive sought

to phase out the pollution of surface waters by blacklisted

substances and reduce the pollution from grey-listed sub-

stances, based on the use of best available techniques. A

somewhat similar Directive to protect groundwater against

pollution, Directive 80/68/EEC of 17 December 1979 on

the protection of groundwater against pollution caused by

certain dangerous substances, was adopted a few years later.

Very important for the collection, treatment, and dis-

charge of urban wastewater has been Directive 91/271/

EEC of 21 May 1991 concerning urban wastewater treat-

ment, which has led to huge investments all over the EU

in wastewater collection and treatment systems. Directive

91/676/EEC of 12 December 1991 concerning the protec-

tion of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from

agricultural sources aims to reduce water pollution caused

or induced by nitrates from agricultural sources and to fur-

ther prevent such pollution.7

ese policies have been, on the whole, successful. In

Belgium, the percentage of households connected to water

treatment plants increased from nearly 0% in the early

1970s to around 60% in 2000. Emissions of polluting sub-

stances by industry fell between 35% and 97%, depending

on the parameter concerned, toward the end of the cen-

tury. e dierent quality indexes of surface waters showed

6. Olivia O. Green et al., EU Water Governance: Striking the Right Balance

Between Regulatory Flexibility and Enforcement?, 18 E  S’ 10

(2013); Pascale Kromarek, La Protection des Eaux Douces en Droit Commu-

nautaire, in M: R O D 1—D

 ’E: D R V 1, at 17-35

(H. Bocken ed., Story-Scientia 1988).

7. Luc Lavrysen, De Europese wetgeving op bescherming van de oppervlaktewa-

teren, T V M, 1992, at 2-12.

Is Integrated Water Management

on Track in the European Union?

by Luc Lavrysen

Luc Lavrysen is a Justice in the Constitutional Court of Belgium and Director of the

Centre for Environmental and Energy Law at Ghent University.

Copyright © 2018 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.