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INDEX
REVISION OF THE DRINKING WATER DIRECTIVE
(Posted 28 May 2008)
The Commission has the obligation to review the bacteriological and chemical quality standards every five years, following the evolution of science and technology. The concept of risk assessment and risk management during the production and distribution of drinking water was introduced by WHO in the 2004 Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality. This concept was introduced in the context of Water Safety Plans, WSP.
The methodology is still under study by the Commission. By taking on board this approach, the quality surveillance of the drinking water would shift from the current control of drinking water at the tap towards quality management along the production and distribution cycle from capture to tap. A working group, managed by WHO was created in order to produce an expert guidance document advising the Commission how to ‘anchor’ the concept of WSP in the revised legislation. This approach must guide the integration of the WSP concept in the proposal for a new directive, stating the minimum requirements for a valid WSP implementation and/or establishing the necessary guidance.
During the past few months the Commission held three Stakeholder Consultation meetings to present the progress made in the revision process.
Further information is available on the DG Environment website:
(http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-drink/index_en.html)
A Report of the working WSP group, position papers and documents from the meetings are available at the Circa website:
(http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/drinking_water_rev/library)
EUROPEAN WATER NEWS WEBSITE AND NEWSLETTER LAUNCHED 2 MAY 2008
(Posted 28 May 2008)
The European Water Partnership (EWP) and Reed Business jointly set up the European Water News, building on the earlier European Water Management Newsletter, EWMN. Over the past few years the importance of water as a subject on the political, media and business agenda has risen, not only in Europe, but all around the world.
The EWP, therefore, thought it time to extend the services of the EWMN and create a broader platform on European water news, continuing the cooperation with the European Water Association. European Water News aims to be the Europe-wide information platform on water-issues and will be dedicated to news, papers and reviews on water management in Europe.
It will consist of a website and related weekly newsletter bringing together information on the water-challenges facing Europe and the innovative technologies and solutions available to address these challenges. European Water News is focused on key decision-makers in European businesses, politics and NGO’s. The newsletter will be sent out to all the current subscribers of the EWMN.
For further details visit the European Water News website:
(http://www.european-waternews.com/index.php)
BATHING WATER DIRECTIVE LOCATIONS CHECK
(Posted 28 May 2008)
During the informal meeting on the Bathing Water Directive with the Member States, held on 23 April 2008 at DG Environment, it was proposed that a quality assurance check of bathing water location should be undertaken to ensure more accurate presentation of bathing waters on the WISE map viewer. Based on reported data by the Member States on bathing water locations for the bathing season of 2007, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has prepared maps of the bathing water locations for each country.
In addition, a tabular overview of all bathing water locations in Excel with fields for corrections has been prepared for each country and uploaded together with the maps in each country folder at the Circa website. Eionet, European Topic Centre on Water is asking Member States to check the names and coordinates of bathing waters and to correct, if needed, wrong names and coordinates
For further information visit the Eionet website:
(http://water.eionet.europa.eu/announcements/ann1210066862)
NEW CHEMICALS AGENCY EXPANDS ITS REACH
Source: Edie Newsroom
(Posted 28 May 2008)
Edie Newsroom reported on 6 May 2008 that the European Chemicals Bureau will hand over responsibility for policing chemicals regulations to a new agency next month. The Helsinki-based European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) will take over enforcement of the REACH legislation from June 1. EU chiefs have said the new agency will ‘play a key role in the effective implementation of REACH’ and help to deliver improved health and environmental conditions.
For further details visit the Edie website:
(http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=14603&channel=2)
‘VIRTUAL WATER’ INNOVATOR AWARDED 2008 STOCKHOLM WATER PRIZE
(Posted 28 May 2008)
Professor John Anthony Allan from King’s College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies has been named the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate. Professor Allan pioneered the development of key concepts in the understanding and communication of water issues and how they are linked to agriculture, climate change, economics and politics. People do not only consume water when they drink it or take a shower. In 1993, Professor Allan, 71, demonstrated this by introducing the “virtual water” concept, which measures how water is embedded in the production and trade of food and consumer products. Virtual water has major impacts on global trade policy and research, especially in water-scarce regions, and has redefined discourse in water policy and management. By explaining how and why nations such as the US, Argentina and Brazil ‘export’ billions of litres of water each year, while others like Japan, Egypt and Italy ‘import’ billions, the virtual water concept has opened the door to more productive water use.
For more details visit the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) website:
(http://www.siwi.org/sa/node.asp?node=25)
COMMISSION PROPOSES TO IMPROVE AND STREAMLINE THE EUROPEAN SYSTEM FOR COLLECTING, ANALYSING AND REPORTING ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION
(Posted 14 April 2008)
Timely, reliable and relevant information on the state of environment is essential for sound policies. This includes information on how the climate is changing, whether European waters are improving and how nature is reacting to pollution and changing land use. Such information should be made available to all and be easily understood. To this end the Commission proposes to improve, modernise and streamline the present information systems by establishing a European Shared Environment Information System (SEIS).
The objective of this system is to tie better together all existing data gathering and information flows using modern tools such as the internet and satellite technology. The objective is also to move away from paper based reporting and reports to a system where data is made available to the users at source in an open and transparent way.
A detailed implementation plan for SEIS will be presented some time in 2008. It will be built on efforts already being undertaken in Europe to create integrated information systems. These include the Water Information System for Europe (WISE) and the European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET), the 2007 INSPIRE Directive on access and interoperability of spatial data, and the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initiative on Earth monitoring data from satellites. However, there is no integrated platform to connect all these initiatives into a shared and common system. SEIS aims to fill in this gap.
Full text of the Press Release (2 February 2008) and further information on SEIS are available on the Commission’s website:
(http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/185&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr)
WORLD WATER MONITORING DAY™, WWMD™
(Posted 14 April 2008)
This is an international education and outreach program that builds public awareness and involvement in protecting water resources around the world by engaging citizens to conduct basic monitoring of their local water bodies. An easy-to-use test kit enables everyone from children to adults to sample local water bodies for a core set of water quality parameters including temperature, acidity (pH), clarity (turbidity) and dissolved oxygen (DO). WWMDay™ is officially observed each year on September 18, which marks the beginning of a month-long period of water quality monitoring ending October 18. Due to the high volume of participants in 2007, the monitoring period was extended until December 18. Results are shared with participating communities around the globe through the event’s website. The Water Environment Federation (WEF) and the International Water Association (IWA) coordinate the WWMDTM. WEF and IWA plan to expand participation to one million participants in 100 countries by 2012.
Results of the 2007 WWMDTM effort have been presented in the ‘Year in Review’ report.
For more information on the event, how to take part and to see the past reports visit the WWMDTM website:
(http://www.worldwatermonitoringday.us/)
IWA SUSTAINABILITY PRIZE
(Posted 14 April 2008)
One of the ambitions of this a new IWA (International Water Association) Specialist Group on Sustainability in the Water Sector is to encourage reflection by researchers and practitioners about the implications of their work for sustainable water management. IWA also seeks to recognise contributions which demonstrate significant progress towards the sustainable management of water resources. The IWA Sustainability Specialist Group Prizes for excellence in sustainable water management have been founded to forward these aims. This year’s prizes will focus on urban water management. The prizes run on a two-year cycle with the awards being delivered at the biennial IWA World Water Congress (to be held in Vienna 7-12 September 2008). The deadline for entries is 1 June 2008.
Eligibility criteria, entry forms for the 2008 awards and other details are available on the IWA website:
(http://www.iwahq.org/templates/ld_templates/layout_633184.aspx?ObjectId=669872)
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