EU Water Law

Member States have, with respect to bodies of surface water, an obligation to prevent deterioration and an obligation to enhance them (Case C 461/13 Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland, para. 39), the Water Framework Directive having established “a complex process involving a number of extensively regulated stages, for the purpose of enabling the Member States to implement the necessary measures, on the basis of the specific features and the characteristics of the bodies of water identified in their territories” (Case C-461/13, para. 42).

For surface water bodies, the 2015 objective consisted in having both their ecological status and their chemical status “at least ‘good’” (Article 2(18)). However, the waters that Member States designate as artificial or heavily modified are subject to less stringent requirements if achieving good ecological status would require changes which would have “significant adverse effects” on the environment, navigation, activities for the purpose of which water is stored, water regulation, plot protection, land drainage or other “equally important sustainable development activities” (Article 4(3)). The requirements for such water bodies are only to achieve “good ecological potential and good surface water chemical status” (Article 4(1)(a)(iii)).

Water used for the abstraction of drinking water or intended for such future use must comply with the requirements for surface water bodies (Article 7(3)). Member States must implement the necessary measures to prevent deterioration of the status of all bodies of surface waters, in particular with the aim of progressively reducing pollution from priority substances and ceasing or phasing out emissions, discharges and losses of priority hazardous substances (Article 4(1)(a)(iv)). Directive 2008/105/EC mentioned above sets quality standards for pollutants, the reduction or suppression of which is a priority.

Special rules apply to a number of priority substances because of the “compartment of the aquatic environment (...) a substance is likely to be found in, and therefore where its concentration is most likely to be measurable.” Such a compartment is defined as the ensemble of water, sediment or biota, and denominated a “matrix” (Article 2(1) of the Directive 2008/105/EC, as modified by Directive 2013/39/EU, and para. 17 of the preamble of Directive 2013/39/EU). Indeed, for very hydrophobic substances which accumulate in biota and are hardly detectable in water, environmental quality standards should in principle apply to biota (para. 17 of the preamble of Directive 2013/39/EU and Article 3(2) and (3) of Directive 2008/105/EC as modified).