11th technical assessment on UWWTD implementation

The objective of the Council Directive 91/271/EEC or Directive concerning urban waste water treatment (also known as the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive or UWWTD) is to protect the environment from the adverse effects of discharges of both urban waste water from settlement areas and biodegradable industrial waste water from food industries. The UWWTD requires that all European settlement areas or agglomerations with a size of 2,000 population equivalents (p.e.) or above, are equipped with collection and treatment systems for their waste waters. The UWWTD establishes detailed criteria for collection and the required levels of treatment, which depend on the size of the agglomeration, and the type of receiving water in which the treated waste waters are discharged. To assess the level of implementation of the UWWTD, the Commission requests all EU Member States to report detailed information every 2 years at agglomeration and treatment plant level, according to Article 15 of the UWWTD and also on their implementation programmes, as required by Article 17 of the UWWTD. The data treatment and assessment rules are spelled out in a detailed methodology. The calculations are included in an IT-tool that applies the concept of the structured implementation and information framework (SIIF) for the UWWTD. There are many different and specific situations, but - in short - an agglomeration is considered compliant with the UWWTD only if it fully collects its waste water and treats it appropriately. Treatment must reduce the organic pollution in all cases. For agglomerations above 10,000 p.e. and discharging into sensitive areas, the treatment applied must also reduce at least the nutrients (nitrogen and/or phosphorus). This 11th UWWTD implementation report uses the reported data - and the results produced by the UWWTD-SIIF national platforms - to present the situation in the EU and in its 28 Member States for the year 2018.