Projekty (7)

Groundwater is and remains a valuable resource for the environment and different human activities. Environmental and anthropogenic pressures on this resource include amongst others: climate change (drought, flooding, etc.), (over)abstraction and pollution (point source and diffuse). Water reuse, water buffering and infiltration are some of the possible measures to diminish our requirement for fresh groundwater as well as replenish its storage. Nonetheless groundwater drilling and abstraction will remain necessary for different purposes. Groundwater shortage is no longer an exclusive problem for arid or Mediterranean countries. Recent prolonged drought periods have repeatedly made clear that groundwater supplies have to be carefully managed (abstraction as well as recharge) in all member states and countries in Europe.

For many years, several research bodies have worked on monitoring cetaceans using large vessels and ferries as platform of observations. The two main European networks are the FLT MED NETwork led by ISPRA and the Atlantic Network led by ORCA (which publishes yearly the “state of European cetacean”). The networks are expanding also for the southern countries of the Mediterranean Region (such as Tunisia and Morocco). There is a strong need for all the team leaders of the different research bodies to meet and strengthen the collaboration, the best practices, and the improvement of the common research and shared monitoring protocol as well as expanding the survey coverage.

Art. 4 of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) obliges Member States, among other things, to protect, enhance and restore all bodies of groundwater with the aim of achieving good groundwater status by December 2015, and to implement the measures necessary to reverse any significant and sustained upward trend in the concentration of pollutants. In actual fact, however, 25 % of ground water bodies in the EU (and e.g. 36 % in Germany) were chemically in a poor status in 2015, mostly due to pollution with nitrates and pesticides from agriculture. Moreover, according to an EEA report of 2018, the total groundwater body area with an identified upward trend of pollution is still nearly double the area with a trend reversal (9.9 % against 5.9 % of area).

The Council Conclusions on countering environmental crime (8 December 2016) have recognised the role of IMPEL in countering Environmental Crimes, but a common definition of “water crimes” is a challenging task. Furthermore, water-related crimes are often recoded under other offences – like fraud, corruption, trafficking, falsification of documents, terrorism – for the absence of a systematic analytical approach. The nature and extent of these kinds of activities is still relatively unknown. Based on this background, this proposal aims at increasing knowledge on water crimes, engaging the IMPEL Community in a project aimed at collecting and sharing information about the topic, its presence, its perception and management at competent authorities.

This work package targets to help Member States on the transition to the Circular Economy within the water cycle. Through the share of good practices in urban, industrial and food production water management, in terms of water use and reuse (use of treated wastewaters as an alternative water source) is intended to identify and improve solutions in terms of water use efficiency (taking into account both quality and quantity aspects), that may contribute to zero pollution solutions.

Many rivers, lakes and streams in the EU are far away from the good water status that they should have reached by December 2015 or should reach at the latest by 2027, according to the EU Water Framework Directive. In Germany, for instance, only 10 % of rivers and streams have a good ecological and chemical status, due to pollution by wastewater, agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, heavy canalization, obstruction by hydro dam barriers, as well as urban sprawl and ground sealing in the catchment areas. In order to reduce and reverse these impacts on water status, it is necessary to assess them in an integrated way and carefully prioritise the necessary measures.

Over-abstraction occurs not only for irrigation use but even for industrial and civil uses and can cause in some cases dramatic effects on soil subsidence. Typical cases of illegal water abstraction occur when wells are operating without permit, or when water is pumped form rivers or channels without permit. Earth Observation (EO), especially satellite remote sensing, can provide well established methods for the monitoring of water abstraction. The detection of illegal water abstraction is a further step forward and is feasible only if permits are organized in a proper GIS. At first instance, EO methods for the monitoring of water abstraction could be summarized as follows: