Only 37% of Europe’s Surface Water Is Healthy, Study Finds

Just a little more than one-third of Europe’s surface water is in “good” health or better, a new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) has found. The report also said the majority of protected aquatic species and habitats have either a “poor” or “bad” conservation status.

The data was collected from 19 EU member countries. 

According to the report, only about 37% of the surface water analyzed in 2021 was identified as having “good” quality or better, and only 29% had at least a good chemical status. 

A major contributing factor to poor chemical status was long-lived pollutants, like mercury or “brominated flame retardants.” If these were not a factor, the study says, 80% of the surface water would be in good health or better.

Another major factor is ongoing atmospheric pollution, largely coming from coal plants and diffuse pollution from agriculture.

Groundwater, on the other hand, which supports local ecosystems and supplies two-thirds of the continent’s drinking water, was reported to be much healthier, although still not in perfect health. About 77% of groundwater studied was in good chemical status and 91% was in “good quantitative status.”

According to the study authors, “Failure to achieve good ecological status shows that European aquatic ecosystems are still seriously degraded.”

Only 17% of protected lake, river, alluvial and riparian habitats were shown to be in good health, while 89% of wetlands were shown to be in bad health or worse. A majority of protected fish and amphibian species were shown to be in poor or bad ecological health and are threatened with becoming locally extinct. “This shows that the EU is far from achieving its biodiversity ambition in aquatic ecosystems,” the authors wrote.

The study uses the 2022 catastrophic die-off event in the Oder River in Germany and Poland as an example of the consequences of bodies of water being in poor or bad health. More than 100 metric tonnes (148 U.S. tons) of dead fish were removed from the river after an algal bloom of the harmful species Prymnesium parvum released deadly toxins in the water.

The algal bloom was largely caused by a combination of salt pollution from salt mines and nutrient pollution — including nitrogen and phosphorous — from urban wastewater, the study said.

The “most significant” pressure, according to the report, was from agriculture, especially from the use of “nutrients and pesticides” for crops.

Agriculture as a practice also consumes an immense amount of water and is the single practice that uses the most water in all of Europe by far. The report warns that, without any significant changes, agricultural demand is set to increase in the coming years.

“The health of Europe’s waters is not good,” Leena Ylä-Mononen, EEA’s executive director, said in a press release. “Our waters face an unprecedented set of challenges that threatens Europe’s water security. We need to redouble our efforts to restore the health of our valued rivers, lakes, coastal waters, and other water bodies and to make sure this vital resource is resilient and secure for generations to come.”

The press release outlines how the health of these waters can improve, including reducing water use, increasing water use efficiency, setting effective targets and improving water management.

Europe should also take on pressures affecting the waters, including preventing pollution, as well as improving nature restoration. In addition to improving water quality, doing so would help fight the climate crisis, Trine Christiansen, one of the study authors, told The Guardian.

“Having a healthy aquatic ecosystem helps mitigate the impacts we’re seeing of climate change,” Christiansen, said. “The better the [water] situation we have, the more capable we are of handling these more extreme events.”