Europe's freshwaters are affected by water scarcity, droughts, floods and physical modifications. Many water bodies are at risk of failing to meet the aim of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) to achieve good status by 2015. Future policies should encourage demand management through actions...

European marine regions include the north-east Atlantic and Arctic oceans, and the Mediterranean, Black and Baltic seas. Human activities — such as fishing, aquaculture and agriculture — and climate change cause large and severe impacts on Europe's coastal and marine ecosystems. The EU...

Despite the vast amount of water on the planet, decades of unsustainable management mean that water shortages have reached crisis point in many regions. Globally, humans appropriate more than 50 % of all renewable and accessible freshwater, while billions still lack the most basic water services...

The main aim of EU water policy is to ensure that a sufficient quantity of good-quality water is available for both people's needs and the environment. The Water Framework Directive (WFD), which came into force in 2000, established a framework for the assessment, management, protection and...

Action 5 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 foresees that Member States will, with the assistance of the Commission, map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory by 2014. This report provides operational guidance to the EU and the Member States on...

Action 5 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 foresees that Member States will, with the assistance of the Commission, map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in their national territory by 2014. This report provides operational guidance to the EU and the Member States on...

This report presents an assessment of the theoretical potential to reduce air emissions of SO2 and NOX had best available techniques (BAT) been fully introduced in a set of electricity-generating large combustion plants (LCP) within the European Union (EU-25) in 2004. Emissions of NOX and SO2...