EuroGeoSurveys has responded to the European Commission’s Call for Evidence on the targeted revision of the Water Framework Directive, emphasising the importance of subsurface integrated spatial planning to support Europe’s water resilience, critical raw materials development, and environmental protection.
We stress that the revision should focus on improving legal clarity, consistency, and implementation across Member States, rather than lowering environmental standards. Key priorities identified are:
- Improving legal clarity and harmonisation for permitting
- Introducing a risk-based, proportionate assessment framework
- Defining natural background levels
- Enabling early-stage spatial planning and screening
- Supporting adaptive regulatory permitting linked to monitoring and modelling
- Strengthening integrated monitoring and modelling
These approaches are essential to support science-based policy decisions and to address increasing pressures from climate change and water scarcity. Pan-European initiatives, such as that delivered by the Geological Service for Europe project through the European Geological Data Infrastructure (EGDI), demonstrate the value of harmonised datasets and monitoring systems in supporting evidence-based decision-making and policy implementation.
Read the full EuroGeoSurveys response to the Call for Evidence on the targeted revision of the Water Framework Directive.