The Directive is intended to protect human health by laying down healthiness and purity requirements which must be met by drinking water within the Community. It applies to all water intended for human consumption apart from natural mineral waters and waters which are medicinal products.
Under this Directive, member states have to identify all the river basins lying within their national territory and assign them to individual river basin districts. By 22 December 2003 at the latest, a competent authority had to be designated for each of the river basin districts. In addition, member states have to analyse the characteristics of each river basin and have to carry out an economic analysis of water use. Nine years after the entry into force of the directive, a management plan must be produced for each river basin district.
One international nonprofit association (under Belgian law) supporting the European Union in dealing with the challenges of water related issues is the WssTP. This platform was built up in 2004 with financial support of the European Commission and is steadily growing ever since. The association is dealing with water supply and sanitation issues within Europe and all over the world. Nowadays, it is funded through fees paid by its 127 members from industry, research and education.
The Water Information System for Europe (WISE) is a partnership of the ЕС, the Directorate-General for the Environment (European Commission), Eurostat, the Joint Research Centre and the European Environment Agency. Since 2007 this web-based service platform provides the public with information about ongoing research projects, policies, data, and reports connected to water in the EU.
The Environmental Action Programme (EAP) is a policy adopted by Environment Ministers in 1993 in a conference in Switzerland. An international Task Force was established later on to support mainly states of countries in the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. In WSS they are supporting the financial strategies of a number of countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
A new data viewer from the European Environment Agency (EEA) that allows users to access data on urban wastewater and treatment plants. 