Baseline groundwater quality: a European approach

One need of the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) as applied to groundwater is to have a clear understanding of the groundwater background quality reference, or baseline, in order for it to be compared to the current situation. As a scientific approach to this issue, the research project “BaSeLiNe” has been carried out by institutions from 12 European countries. Among the different work packages, an applied element was included in the project to involve groundwater managers, end-users and regulators as stakeholders in the groundwater baseline quality issue. This was done through a questionnaire which was distributed to selected high-level people from each participating country. The main subject of this paper is the results obtained from the 69 questionnaires retrieved and the related discussions originating from them. Most answers refer to water supply issues, but not exclusively. It comes out that groundwater in many cases is the main or the only available water source for human and agricultural supply. Generally, it is of good quality, although a progressive deterioration and the excessive content of some components is becoming noticeable. Groundwater protection is a long-term key issue which needs regulation, management and planning, and should be a subject of public information. However, at high management and policy-making levels often just a small sensitive awareness to the use of groundwater and its protection has been recognized. Groundwater quality improvements are expected from a combination of factors that mainly include changes in land use and better farming practices. The costs involved must be supported by users, but they are often not very prone to pay for quality improvements, and therefore ask for subsidies. The effective participation of river basin districts, groundwater user associations and stakeholders in groundwater management is considered to be positive, although experience is lacking and there may be some drawbacks if there are no adequate institutions.