"Water is not a commercial product like any other, but a heritage that must be protected, defended, and treated as such." This principle, outlined in the EU's 2000/60/EC directive of October 23 2000, sets the foundation for European water policies, making access to water a priority. Europe has always prided itself on its clean water — accessible, abundant, and drinkable. Most of what we drink, irrigate our crops with, and use in our industries comes from deep underground, from within vast labyrinths of aquifers. This precious groundwater sustains an entire continent and has helped turn Europe into one of the world's most sanitary and prosperous regions.

European countries have been drilling deeper to extract water for over a century. This practice, based on the belief in an endless supply replenished by rainfall, has persisted for years. But today, we know better. Scientists have warned in recent years that this delicate system is in crisis. And that climate change and industrial overexploitation have resulted in a dramatic decline in the quality and quantity of underground freshwater in Europe.

The Under the Surface project, coordinated by Arena for Journalism in Europe and initiated by Datadista, delved into official data from European countries to reveal, for the first time, the extent of the danger we face.

Altogether, 14 journalists from seven countries, including the authors of this series at Il Bo Live, analysed the most up-to-date EU figures and created an interactive map of Europe's aquifers. The conclusion is that our water is disappearing, and what remains is facing near-irreversible pollution. Fifteen per cent of the aquifers mapped are in poor condition: dangerously overexploited, contaminated or both. Important crop-producing countries such as Spain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands are the worst affected. Though this may seem a small percentage, the health of underground aquifers varies significantly between countries.

The data, while informative, needs to be interpreted cautiously, as explained on the project's methodology page, since it is still incomplete. According to EU regulations, all member states, including Iceland and Norway, must submit groundwater data every six years to the European Environmental Agency (EEA) to monitor the health of surface and groundwater. These data are assessed quantitatively (availability) and qualitatively (chemical status), aiming to achieve good water quality by 2027.

 

INTERACTIVE MAP: Know the status of the European Union groundwater
Good status
Poor status
Unknown status
Mandatory public data not yet reported
Situation of 7,165 groundwater bodies according to third cycle plans (2022-2027) | Source: European Environment Agency. Data updated as May 3, 2024
IMPACT DESCRIPTION OF THE RISK
L Groundwater level decrease (aquifer depth, water volume) due to extractions.
N Nutrient pollution, mainly from fertilizers and animal waste, above the legal limit (50 mg/l) or close to the limit with an upward trend.
C Chemical pollution other than nutrients (mainly pesticides but also metals, hydrocarbons, etc.) above the legal limit or close and with an upward trend.
E Impact on terrestrial ecosystems dependent on groundwater.
M Microbiological contamination.
O Organic contamination.
IMPACT DESCRIPTION OF THE RISK
Q Decrease in surface water quality associated with chemical or quantitative impact.
I Alterations in the direction of water flow due to saline intrusion.
S Saline intrusion or contamination.
T Other types of significant impact.
N No significant impact.
A Acidification of water bodies.
U Unknown impact type.
H Altered habitats due to hydrological changes.
Y Altered habitats due to morphological changes (includes connectivity).

 

Of the 29 countries involved, 16 provided complete, publicly accessible data. Germany and Portugal have submitted data accessible only to the European Commission. Eleven countries are not included in the map — ten have not provided any information, and Austria has made some data public but did not share the complete dataset. Scientists interviewed for the Under the Surface project believe the lack of comprehensive data makes it difficult to assess the damage to Europe's aquifers fully.

Despite the increasing urgency in critical regions, the EU consistently fails to ensure countries meet minimum legal requirements. Worse, it appears to soften its commitments under pressure from agricultural and chemical industry lobbies.

 

Europe is running out of water – a growing crisis

Farmers, rice growers, and communities in drought-prone areas are all facing the same struggle: every year, drought and polluted water have a significant impact on daily life and business. As Europe braces for yet another record-breaking summer of high temperatures and likely drought, the journalists involved in this investigation spoke to people across Europe, scientists, and politicians to understand the consequences of a drying Europe.

The testimonies are clear: Europe's aquifers are under significant pressure due to over-irrigation, industrial exploitation, and various pollutants. This pressure threatens not only the whole production sector but also the civic water supply — essential for daily life.

"Europe has a major water problem," said Hans Bruyninckx, professor of environmental governance at the University of Antwerp. "In some areas, it is becoming extremely urgent. Scientists have been predicting this for many years. Now, we are at that point. There are places that have reached a point of no return."

“We have lived well beyond our means for decades on the assumption that water is infinite,” said Henk Ovink, director of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, an expert group facilitated by the OECD, to our European colleagues. Ovink is one of the world’s premier advocates for sustainable water practices, once nicknamed the “water guy” by President Barack Obama. “But our actions are changing the course and availability of freshwater. We can no longer count on water being there for us.”

Elisabeth Lictevout, a hydrogeologist and director of the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC), suggested that while “countries may have the tendency to report [their groundwater status] as better than they are,” they will never report it as worse. “This map is the best-case scenario,” she said.

All three experts agree that the crisis is more severe than the map indicates. “It seems that a lot of data isn't reported,” Ovink said. “Which means that a lot of stakeholders and countries are absolutely not taking this problem seriously enough. They are avoiding the science and the data telling us we are operating in the danger zone.”

 

The consequences of overexploitation

Europeans are accustomed to having a year-round abundance of food products—strawberries in December and oranges in August. Traditional seasonal crops are becoming a thing of the past, with many choosing local agriculture only as a niche option. European olive oil, once an essentially local, rain-fed product, is now a global obsession—a billion-euro industry exporting worldwide. The EU has funded this mass production with subsidies from its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). One-third of the EU budget—€54 billion annually—goes to the CAP, turning the EU into an agricultural superpower and countries like Spain into global food producers.

But it all has come at a cost.

Spain is one of the countries in Europe most impacted by degraded aquifers. Almost half of its groundwater bodies are in poor condition in terms of quality and quantity. Around 27% are overexploited, with the majority in the south and east, traditional farming regions now with vast intensive agricultural production.

Spain offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the continent: a success story built on the pillaging of scarce resources now skirting perilously close to a collapse. The country produces millions of tonnes of fruit, vegetables, and livestock yearly, much of it for the continent. The consequences of significant disruption would be felt everywhere. "​​We put everything at risk, starting with food, energy, health and nature - if we do not restore the global water cycle," said Henk Ovink. "There is no alternative to water. When that disappears, everything ends."

The climate crisis, of course, is fuel on the fire. A lack of rainfall in dry countries like Spain and Italy forces local communities and farmers to rely more heavily on groundwater. The aquifers, already under pressure, cannot recharge fast enough to meet demand.

The situation is alarming even in regions known for rain, like Belgium and France. Aquifers are reaching dangerously low levels. Our research shows that 75% of deep aquifers in Belgium are overexploited, and most shallow groundwater is contaminated with excessive nitrate levels due to fertilisers.

 

Pollution and its consequences

Many European countries face the effects of decades of pollution, which taints what's left of the water. Nitrate pollution from fertilisers, manure, and pesticides is widespread across Europe, particularly in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, and France. As groundwater levels drop, pollution becomes more concentrated.

In Spain, reporters from Datadista visited towns where aquifers that sustained communities for centuries have dried up or been contaminated with nitrates and arsenic. Lastras de Cuellar, a small Spanish village, has depended on bottled water for years due to unsafe public water.

In France, chemical contamination is widespread, with toxic molecules from pesticides like Atrazine, banned in 2004, still found in aquifers. "We've turned our aquifers into a dumping ground," said Florence Habets, hydro climatologist at France's CNRS.

Treating the water that reaches our homes requires extensive — and costly — water treatment processes to filter out harmful substances. The cost of this journey from the aquifer or river to the tap is borne by the public — or increasingly by the customers of private water companies. The more pollutants there are, the higher the cost of making water drinkable.

The principle of 'polluter pays' is enshrined in the EU Treaty. In practice, it exists only on paper. The EU's legislative mechanism to sanction countries –the so-called infringement proceedings – is long, slow, and a last resort. The industrial and agricultural polluters of groundwater are rarely hit with a bill. On a national level, countries that fail in their duty to implement EU regulations or directives are usually just “called on” to fix the situation.

 

Reversibility is possible if we want it

The experts consulted by our European colleagues unanimously believe that tackling groundwater pollution and depletion requires a systematic approach. At the end of 2023, the European Commission announced a Water Resilience Initiative to promote sustainability and access to water across the bloc as part of the "European Green Deal." The proposal to “ensure access to water for citizens, nature and the economy, while also tackling catastrophic flooding and water shortages,” received support from a broad range of stakeholders — not just environmental NGOs but also from industry. Barely five months later, the commission backtracked and placed the initiative on indefinite hold.

"The initiative isn't legally binding, but it would recognise the need to tackle water issues and put them on the political agenda," said Sara Johansson, senior policy officer at the Brussels-based European Environmental Bureau, to our European colleagues. “It could have been potentially perceived as a threat to agro-industry. Everything related to agriculture at the moment is very sensitive.”

Recently, the EU has softened its climate approach, yielding to political pressures from far-right parties and agricultural and agrochemical lobbies. "The dumbest thing we can do now is pull back, as Europe is doing by weakening environmental legislation," concluded Henk Ovink. "That setback will make things much worse."

Hans Bruyninckx agrees. “We are going over tipping points. We are going deep into the red,” he said. "It is shocking that politicians are not taking this seriously. They seem to think or falsely hope that it will all be fine. Scientific evidence is now almost screaming: it will not be OK."

 

What we will cover in this series

Although the European Directive sets the goal of restoring the continent's water quality to a good state by 2027, this objective now seems further away than ever. Countries like Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Malta, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Slovenia are 2.5 years behind in simply submitting the required information on the state of their groundwater. This step is essential just to begin strategising solutions. In some countries, the problems are more structural. In Greece, groundwater measurements were not taken from 2016 to 2017, nor have they been taken since last October. The EU entirely funds Greece's National Water Monitoring Network, and when funds are unavailable, authorities do not conduct the necessary measurements.

In the next episodes of this series, we will analyse the situation in Italy, focusing mainly on drought management measures. Since May 2023, Italy has had a National Extraordinary Commissioner for the adoption of urgent interventions related to water scarcity, Nicola Dell'Acqua, appointed by the DPCM on May 4, 2023. The appointment was later extended by the current government until the end of 2024. That same year, a Drought Decree was issued and later converted into law.

We have decided to delve into the drought management policies that Italy has implemented and is currently implementing and the strategies that should follow. We will also tell exemplary stories about the management of some of the most critical areas in our country. According to the 2022 Drought Report published by ISPRA (Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), Italy has seen a dramatic annual loss of average freshwater availability levels between 1951 and 2022. To anticipate one figure we will analyse more in-depth in the second part of this series: the average annual water availability between 1951 and 2021 was 456.9 mm (138 cubic kilometres). In 2022, a dramatic year for drought in Italy, this figure dropped to 221.7 mm, equal to 67 cubic kilometres. The four water districts that experienced the most significant variation were Sicily (-80% in 2022 compared to the 1951-2021 average), Sardinia (-73%), and the Po basin (-66%). More recent data published by ISPRA this May indicate that this year's situation is naturally somewhat different. Still, significant differences and critical issues remain across much of our country, with half of it far from being in a water security zone. Sicily's high water scarcity region was declared a natural disaster emergency last February, receiving government funding and extraordinary measures for drought management.

From here, we will investigate whether restoring Italy's waters to good health is still possible, what is being done, and where and how to achieve this goal.

 

 


Credits

The Under the Surface investigative project was launched by Datadista and coordinated by Arena for Journalism in Europe. It is an international collaboration between Le Monde (France), Datadista (Spain), Reporters United (Greece), De Standaard (Belgium), Dagbladet Information (Denmark), Facta (Italy), and Investico (Netherlands).

This article has been translated, integrated, and adapted to the Italian context from the original English version written by colleagues from the European consortium: Zeynep Sentek, Jelena Prtorić, Sarah Pilz, Ine Renson, Maxie Eckert, Ana Tudela, Antonio Delgado, Raphaëlle Aubert, Myrto Boutsi, and Léa Sanchez.

All stories published in other countries can be found at: europeanwaters.eu.

Here, you can find more information on the journalistic consortium's methodology, activities, and composition.

This article and others in the Il Bo Live series, as well as part of the work by other European colleagues described on the English site and in the methodology, are supported by a grant from Journalismfund Europe.

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