MetaWater JPI Project | European Comission is working on legislative or other instruments to boost water reuse.

European Comission is working on legislative or other instruments to boost water reuse.

Author: natalia - Published At: 2016-05-24 00:00 - (2128 Reads)

Water reuse contributes to the broader water sector which is a key component of EU eco-industrial landscape. This topic has been currently under discussion in public consultations as well as in various studies requested by the European Commission. Limited awareness of potential benefits among stakeholders and the general public, and lack of a supportive and coherent framework for water reuse are two major barriers currently preventing a wider spreading of this practice in the EU. For these reasons the Commission is working on legislative or other instruments to boost water reuse when it is cost-efficient and safe for health and the environment.

Reuse of treated wastewater can provide significant environmental, social and economic benefits. According to the "Blueprint to safeguard Europe's water resources" communication, water reuse can improve the status of the environment both quantitatively, alleviating pressure by substituting abstraction, and qualitatively, relieving pressure of discharge from urban wastewater treatment plants (UWWTPs) to sensitive areas. Moreover, when compared to alternative sources of water supply such as desalination or water transfer, water reuse often turns out to require lower investment costs and energy, also contributing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Reclaimed wastewater can be considered a reliable water supply, quite independent from seasonal drought and weather variability and able to cover peaks of water demand. This can be very beneficial to farming activities that can rely on reliable continuity of water supply during the irrigation period, consequently reducing the risk of crop failure and income losses. Appropriate consideration for nutrients in treated wastewater could also reduce the use of additional fertilisers resulting in savings for the environment, farmers and wastewater treatment. At present, about 1 billion cubic metres of treated urban wastewater is reused annually, which accounts for approximately 2.4% of the treated urban wastewater effluents and less than 0.5% of annual EU freshwater withdrawals. But the EU potential is much higher, estimated in the order of 6 billion cubic metres – six times the current volume.

A number of studies have been supported by the Commission in recent years to assess the potential of EU action in this area, the latest one was the report "Optimising water reuse in the EU", BIO, 2015. On 17th April, the Commission launched a roadmap to study the minimum quality requirements for water reuse in irrigation and aquifer recharge, in order to establish rules on that matter for early next year. This document Inception Impact Assessment on the initiative "Minimum quality requirements for reused water in the EU (new EU legislation)" sets out in greater detail the background, the policy objectives and options as well as their likely impacts.

You can get further information from the EC official web site. You can find also a news article in spanish here.