Scientific and technical support to the groundwater legislative framework

Supporting research activities

The Treaty establishing the European Union indicates that Research Framework Programmes have to serve two main strategic objectives. First, it provides a scientific and technological basis for industry and encourages its international competitiveness. And second, it promotes research activities in support of other EU policies. To this end, Framework Programmes are designed to help solving problems and responding to major socio-economic challenges faced by society. The Research Framework Programme (FP) is the European Union's main instrument for funding research and development. The Sixth FP has terminated at the end of 2006, and is now continued by the Seventh FP which began on 1 January 2007 and will run until the end of 2013.

The FP6 was the Commission’s response to the requirements of the Lisbon Summit in March 2000. The summit called for a better use of European research by creating an internal market for science and technology (the European Research area). The seventh Research Framework Programme is designed to build on the achievements of its predecessor and mover forward in the creation of a European knowledge economy and society. FP7 is to respond to Europe's employment needs, competitiveness and quality of life.

Within the Seventh Framework Programme (formally adopted by the European Parliament and the Council on the 18 December 2006), the Environment (including climate change) theme has a budget of 1890 millions euros for the period 2007-2013 (on a total budget of 50 521 millions euros). It covers a range of water-related research activities, some of which will be of indirect or direct support to the implementation of the new Groundwater Directive.

An example of project in direct support to EU groundwater policies

Many different projects have been undertaken since the 5th Framework Programme (1998-2002) which were of direct or indirect relevance to groundwater policies. The integration of knowledge gathered from these projects into the legislative process is, however, not a straightforward process and there are often gaps of communication between scientific stakeholders and policy-makers in the Member States. The 6th FP has opened the possibility to fund "tailor-made" projects in response to research needs formulated by policy-makers. Regarding groundwater, this has resulted in the launching and development of the BRIDGE project (standing for "Background Criteria for the Identification of Groundwater Thresholds"), which was designed to develop a common methodology intended to be used by Member States for establishing groundwater threshold values (thus directly supporting the newly adopted Groundwater Directive). The project has been developed in 2004-2006. It was carried out at European level and involved a range of stakeholders, including the scientific and policy-making communities. The different objectives were:

• To evaluate and gather scientific results to set criteria for the assessment of the chemical status of groundwater. These criteria will be translated into data used for the characterisation of natural and anthropogenic pollutants, parameters indicative for pollution, and data used for the hydrologic and hydrogeological characterisation of groundwater bodies;
• To draw up criteria for setting scientifically sound groundwater threshold values for national river basin districts or groundwater bodies;
• To check the suitability and validity of the approach through European-wide case studies which would assess its environmental, economic and social impact.

The methodology that transpired from this process was drawn up in consultation with representatives from Member State's environment ministries and agencies, and from stakeholders of the CIS Working Group on Groundwater (WG C). It took into account the negotiations of the new Groundwater Directive which was taking place at the time. This presented an additional challenge above and beyond the scientific one.

The final meeting has been held in Paris on 15 December 2006. The proposed method for deriving groundwater threshold values will now be directly communicated to Member States experts for policy discussions. The proposal is expected to be adopted before the summer of 2007. The research will therefore have fulfilled one of the requirements of the new Groundwater Directive, namely by supporting the obligation of Member States to establish groundwater threshold values by the end of 2008 according to a common methodological approach.

Other supporting RTD projects

The above project is only one of many other supporting RTD projects which were undertaken within the 5th and 6th Framework Programmes. Information on EU-funded projects, including water-related research projects, is available on CORDIS.