News

Urban bathing waters are a valuable symbol of sustainable European cities, where citizens can interact with urban nature as a result of the successes of long-term environmental management. The opening of each new urban bathing water and the continued maintenance of clean, safe bathing water should be met by praise and encouragement.

The report that we co-authored aims at assessing marine litter from source to sea, emphasizing the causalities between socio-economic drivers, pressures, and the state of pollution in Europe’s coastal and marine environments.

The new ETC ICM report assesses the beach litter data collected in the period 2015-2021 under the Marine Litter Watch initiative. Assessment of the data may help strengthen Europe’s knowledge base on beach litter and thus provide support to relevant/interrelated European policies in tackling plastic pollution and marine litter.

The two indicators provide an overview of the water quality from the nutrient and pesticide perspective in European freshwaters. We update the indicators annually, according to the Eionet WISE dataflows (Waterbase - Water Quality database).

As part of the annual data collection and assessment process, we have updated the quality classes for more than 21 thousand European bathing waters. The quality remains high, with 95% of the sites meeting a minimum microbiological standard.

Our analysis and assessment on the management of the Alpine water bodies has been published in the national Alpine Gazette. The Alpine rivers have been traditionally used as the drinking water source, among numerous other uses, and still present an essential development factor for more than 14 million inhabitants of the region.

Our experts speak at the European investigative journalism conference

The new ETC/ICM technical report assesses the beach litter data collected until 2020 under the Marine Litter Watch initiative. Assessment of the data may help strengthen Europe’s knowledge base on beach litter and thus provide support to relevant/interrelated European policies in tackling plastic pollution and marine litter.

The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) new indicator, which aims to track Europe’s progress in reducing pesticides in waters, shows that excessive levels of pesticides have been recorded in a considerable share of European freshwaters.

In November 2021, the European Commission's Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV) and European Environment Agency (EEA) have launched a cooperative portal on freshwaters of Europe, as part of the Water Information System for Europe (WISE).

Our office has attended the field excursion to the valley of Tržiška Bistrica, Slovenia, taking place on 5th November and organised by the Slovenian Water Management Society.

As part of an annual bathing water quality data collection and assessment process, we have updated the quality statuses for more than 22,000 bathing waters in Europe. Bathing water quality in Europe remains high: the minimum water quality standards were met at 93 % of sites.

Reducing pressures from agriculture is key to improving the status of Europe’s rivers, lakes, transitional, coastal waters and seas as well as groundwater bodies. A European Environment Agency (EEA) assessment shows that wider uptake of sustainable agricultural management practices is needed for improving the state of water, as well as biodiversity.

We have produced an EEA report on success stories of the European bathing water management. It shows how improving bathing water quality can serve as a model for successful environmental legislation and management.

The scientific article "Multiple stressors determine river ecological status at the European scale: Towards an integrated understanding of river status deterioration" has been published. It has been found that almost two thirds of the observed changes in European freshwater biota can be directly attributed to human influences. Excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus compounds), toxic substances (pesticides and other dangareous substances) and hydromorphological changes (changes in the dynamics, duration and frequency of high waters, prolonged hydrological droughts, water abstraction, channel regulations, narrowing of riverbeds, etc.) are almost equally negatively impacting rivers.

Preliminary pan-European assessment of floodplain condition addresses the degradation of floodplain extent, structure, as well as processes. It documents that floodplains suffer from wide-spread degradation in particular very flat lowland, flat lowland and mid altitude plateau types. These correspond to areas where land use activities are intense and urbanisation is present. This is also where the lateral connection between rivers and floodplain, which is fundamental for their condition, has been most impaired.

Our experts have published two articles on their research regarding the comparison of the human impact on the floodplains in Slovenia with the impact in the other European countries; and the initial analysis of the EEA pan-european pesticide dataset.

We supported the development and launch of the three national water information systems.

To update the indicator on the European freshwater quality, we have analysed tje monitoring data from more than 7600 monitoring sites in the European Union.

Our team has joined the Water Management Society of Slovenia multi-day excursion to Slavonija (Croatia) and Vojvodina (Serbia). The aim was to visit some of the largest fluvial floodplains in Europe, get acquainted with the flood management measures and river navigation infrastructure on the Danube, as well as to meet the water experts of Croatia and Serbia.

By visiting the three Caucasus capitals, we established the basis for the development of three national information systems on water, operating according to the EIONET standards.

Our team took part in gravel sample collection fieldwork on the banks of the river Mura. The aim is to monitor the hydromorphological effects of the river canal restoration under the project DraMurCi.