Newsletter 06 September 2018

The 2018 “SDG Index and Dashboards Report” provides a report card for country performance on the historic Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The annual report shows how leaders can deliver on their promise, and it urges countries not to lose the momentum for important reforms.
The UN Report 2018 on Water and Sanitation reviews the global progress made towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It builds on the latest data available for the 11 SDG 6 global indicators and informed the High-level Political Forum for Sustainable Development during its in-depth review of SDG 6 in July 2018. The report represents a joint position from the United Nations family. Today, billions of people lack safe water, sanitation and handwashing facilities. Ecosystems and water sources are becoming more polluted, and funding for water and sanitation services is inadequate. In addition, governance and delivery systems are weak and fragmented.

The European Environmental Agency (EEA) report “European waters - Assessment of status and pressures 2018” gives an updated check on over 130,000 surface and groundwater bodies monitored based on the data collected and reported from more than 160 so-called River Basin Management Plans covering the period 2010 to 2015.

According to the report, only 40% of monitored lakes, rivers, estuaries and coastal waters achieved the EU Water Framework Directive’s minimum ‘good’ or ‘high’ ecological status. European groundwater bodies, like aquifers, are in good health in most cases, with 74% being rated as having good chemical pollution status and 89% having good ecological status. The EEA assessment also looked at the quantitative state and over-abstraction of European groundwater and the overall chemical status of water bodies.

Most people living in the EU enjoy very good access to high quality drinking water. This results from long standing EU legislation protecting Europeans and ensuring that they have access to high quality drinking water. The Commission wants to make sure that this high quality is preserved in the long run. The Commission proposes to update provisions by adding new and emerging substances to the list of criteria for determining water safety (such as legionella and chlorate). These additions take account of the latest scientific knowledge and recommendations of the World Health Organisation.

The new rules will require Member States to improve access for all people, especially for vulnerable and marginalised groups who currently have difficulty accessing safe drinking water. In practice, that means setting up equipment for access to drinking water in public spaces, launching campaigns to inform citizens about the quality of their water and encouraging administrations and public buildings to provide access to drinking water.

Another important change in the legislation will give the public easy, user-friendly – including online – access to information about the quality and supply of drinking water in their living area, improving confidence in tap water.

The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) is the first European operational system for monitoring and forecasting floods across Europe. It provides complementary, flood early warning information up to 10 days in advance to its partners, the national/regional hydrological services and the European Response and Coordination Centre (ERCC).

The Hydrological Data Collection Centre analysed all hydrological data collected throughout 2017 with particular focus on:

• the general hydrological conditions of 2017;
• the gaps within the data collection;
• the exceedance of hydrological thresholds; and
• flood events.

During  Water Innovation Europe 2018 conference “The road towards a Water-Smart Society: Overcoming the Water challenges of the future”, the WssTP Water Innovation Awards 2018 ceremony was held on the 13th of June. For the 2018 edition of WssTP Water Innovation Awards, There were numerous strong applications submitted. The winners for this edition have been identified for their excellence and high market potential of their innovations in their field of application.
The five WssTP Water Innovation Awards Winners are: SMEs Award: Altered: Nozzle;  Water technology & infrastructure prize: TECHNI; Digital Water Prize: SmartH20; Water Governance Prize: CONCERT’EAU; Global Water Challenges Prize: HSBC Water Programme

The SWIM-H2020 SM Project (Sustainable Water Integrated Management and Horizon 2020 Support Mechanism 2016-2019) funded by the European Union aims to contribute to reduced marine pollution and a sustainable use of scarce water resources in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia). The project will provide tailored and targeted support to authorities and other stakeholders of the Partner Countries in order to tackle the reduction of industrial emissions, municipal waste and urban wastewater to the Mediterranean Sea and ensure the sustainable use of water resources. It aims to:

provide tailored and targeted technical assistance to national partners through an expert facility;

organize regional (or sub-regional) peer-to-peer seminars and webinars;

conduct on-site training courses and study tours;

capitalize on the lessons learnt, good practices and success stories;

support the Horizon 2020 Initiative’s governance mechanism and the work of the UfMS’s (Union for the Mediterranean) Water Experts Group.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched the funding measure ‘Regional Water Resources Management for Sustainable Protection of Waters in Germany’ (ReWaM) in 2015, with almost 30 million € within the framework of the funding priority ‘Sustainable Water Management’ (NaWaM). The projects’ funding period will end in 2018 or 2019.

Fifteen projects have been conducting research since 2015. All projects address the diverse challenges of regional water re­sources management in model regions. The model regions are located throughout the entire Federal Republic of Germany. This allows the transfer of the research findings to other regions in Germany and to neighbouring European countries. The final results and key messages of each project are presented in the project brochure and twelve positions for policy makers and water managers are summarized in the policy paper “New ways to Water Protection”. These insights are especially significant in view of the Europe-wide review process of the WFD which is currently being implemented.