Posted on July, 30 2019

In the face of climate change, droughts are becoming increasingly common and severe, and Europe is no exception. And yet, Europe’s water resources are continuing to be stretched extremely thin. Poor water management is threatening future water supplies and makes freshwater ecosystems far less able to cope with climate change.

This paper shows that Member States’ mismanagement of their water resources can be rectified through full implementation of the EU water law - the Water Framework Directive (WFD). A key mission of the legislation is to mitigate the impacts of droughts and ensure that freshwater ecosystems are resilient enough to cope in a changing climate, and subsequently able to keep supplying good quality water during dry periods.