The Groundwater Directive (GWD; full title: ''Directive 2006/118/EC of the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

and of the

Council A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...

of 12 December 2006 on the protection of

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

against pollution and deterioration)'' is an

EU directive A directive is a legal act of the European Union that requires Member state of the European Union, member states to achieve particular goals without dictating how the member states achieve those goals. A directive's goals have to be made the go ...

establishing specific measures as provided for in the

Water Framework Directive The Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) is an EU directive to establish a framework for the protection of all water bodies (including marine waters up to one nautical mile from shore) by 2015. The WFD establishes a programme and timeta ...

in order to prevent and control

groundwater pollution Groundwater pollution (also called groundwater contamination) occurs when pollutants are released to the ground and make their way into groundwater. This type of water pollution can also occur naturally due to the presence of a minor and unwant ...

. In 2018, a total of 74% of EU groundwater bodies were assessed to be in "good chemical status". Agriculture has been identified as a major contributor to poor status due to

nitrate Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the chemical formula . salt (chemistry), Salts containing this ion are called nitrates. Nitrates are common components of fertilizers and explosives. Almost all inorganic nitrates are solubility, soluble in wa ...

and

pesticide pollution The environmental effects of pesticides describe the broad series of consequences of using pesticides. The unintended consequences of pesticides is one of the main drivers of Environmental impact of agriculture, the negative impact of modern ind ...

Background

The

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

first published legislation specifically for groundwater protection in 1979 (Directive 80/68/EEC) to limit the discharge of certain toxic substances from industrial sources. Between 1991 and 1995, calls to implement measures avoiding long-term deterioration of freshwater sources by the year 2000 were recognised, as well as requests from the European Council to revise Directive 80/68/EEC due to concerns that groundwater resources remained seriously endangered by both pollutants and growing

water extraction Water extraction (also known as water withdrawal, water abstraction, and water intake) is the process of taking water from any source, either temporarily or permanently, for flood control or to obtain water for, for example, irrigation. The ex ...

. A 1995 report from the

European Environment Agency The European Environment Agency (EEA) is the agency of the European Union (EU) which provides independent information on the environment. Definition The European Environment Agency (EEA) is the agency of the European Union (EU) which provides ...

for the Fifth Environmental Action Plan found that fresh water extraction rates had risen by 35% between 1970 and 1985. Groundwater beneath more than 85% of European agricultural lands (including central and

eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

) was also estimated to exceed guide levels of

concentration. An estimated 65% of public water supply in the

European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Asso ...

came from groundwater sources in the late 1980s. In 1996, an action programme was adopted by the European Commission, introducing controls on abstraction of freshwater, and identifying the need to monitor freshwater quality and quantities. The European Parliament and Council subsequently requested the Commission to establish a framework for European water policy, leading to the adoption of the

(WFD) in October 2000. The WFD aims to ensure a balance between extraction and recharge of groundwater, but resolving quality standards for chemical status was a complex challenge, requiring the proposal and adoption of a "daughter" directive clarifying the criteria for chemical status measures and pollution trends, This new Groundwater Directive was adopted in December of 2006.

Objectives

The GWD provides the detailed procedures for meeting the WFD's environmental objectives for groundwater quality. The specific measures include: criteria for the assessment of good groundwater chemical status; and criteria for the identification and reversal of upward trends in the concentration of pollutants.

Member states A member state is a state that is a member of an international organization or of a federation or confederation. Since the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) include some members that are not sovereign states ...

are required to establish threshold values for all pollutants and pollution indicators. The directive specifies a minimum list of pollutants that must be considered to identify groundwater bodies that are at risk of not meeting good chemical standards as determined by the WFD. Both the list of pollutants and quality standards are to be reviewed every six years.

Quality Standards

The Water Framework Directive outlines strategies to prevent and control pollution of groundwater. It mandates the adoption of measures with conductivity and pollutant concentration parameters to achieve good groundwater chemical status. In particular, groundwater bodies must not exhibit effects of saline or pose significant damage to ecosystems dependent on the body to be considered "good status". The Groundwater Directive addresses these quality standards with the following list of pollutants: The quality standard specifies a total value for the sum of all individual pesticides detected and quantified in the monitoring procedures.

Threshold Values

Member States are required to establish threshold values for all pollutants and indicators. The threshold values should be based on interactions between groundwater and dependent ecosystems; interference with legitimate uses of groundwater; pollutants that are characterised as risky; hydro-geological characteristics including information on natural background levels and water balance. A minimum list of pollutants and indicators are specified for which Member States must consider establishing threshold values:

Upward Trends

Member States are required to identify significant upward trends in groundwater bodies that are at risk in accordance with the WFD. The Groundwater Directive mandates the usage of statistical methods, such as regression analysis, for

time series In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. ...

of individual monitoring points. Measures to reverse upward trends are expected to be implemented once pollutant concentration reaches 75% of the values specified by the GWD's quality standards. Statistical methods employed by Member States have included

ANOVA Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a family of statistical methods used to compare the means of two or more groups by analyzing variance. Specifically, ANOVA compares the amount of variation ''between'' the group means to the amount of variation ''w ...

(sometimes combined with the LOESS method), the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test, Seasonal Kendall and Regional Kendall tests.

Note

: These pollutants were inserted in th
Commission Directive 2014/80/EU of 20 June 2014

References

{{Reflist European Union directives Health and the European Union Water and politics 2006 in law 2006 in the environment 2006 in the European Union Environmental law in the European Union