Water works

EUI. The EWA promotes the sustainable management of a total water cycle. How do you go about achieving this mission?
PC. Originally, when the EWA formed in 1981, it was basically a small group of representatives from a small group of countries, who wanted to have a mechanism for the exchange of experience and knowledge. Increasingly over the years we have become involved with the European Commission and provide experts as and when we can to our working groups and to advise in the development of policy and legislation in the water and environmental sector.

EUI. What is the current outlook for European water management?
PC. It’s good. The whole development for the management of the water cycle in Europe is based upon the water frame of directors and it is a complete management system. The most important thing about the water framework directors is that there is a body that is managing and controlling implementation by the member states. We, as the European Water Association, have a place in this group and it is extremely important to us because it enables us to understand how legislation is being implemented across the member states. It is increasing internationally and is looked upon as a good tool for the management of our water cycle in any area.

EUI. Europe has seen its fair share of unpredictable weather recently, from floods one minute to droughts the next. Do you think that there is the critical infrastructure in place to deal with this extreme weather?
PC. The infrastructure in place has been used for a long time in most cases and now needs to be reviewed because circumstances have changed. The frequency and intensity of storms has changed for example and that means that drainage needs to be reviewed. We need to be a lot more careful in the use of our land, particularly in flood plains, as has recently been seen in Gloucestershire and Yorkshire in the UK. In Eastern Europe the infrastructure was originally designed to cater to the fact that t rained less often and there were quite long periods with no rain at all. Now, due ot changes in weather patterns and because the investment in infrastructure is long term, we need to review how best to accommodate that.

We are looking at both short term adaptation measures which can be applied almost whatever because it is so obvious, but then for some of the more long term investments perhaps we need to take a little time to make sure we do it right.   

EUI. In your opinion, how will climate change affect the way that future projects are tackled? Do you think there may be new rules and regulations in the future regarding this topic?
PC. In the water industry we are heavily energy dependant. We use a lot of energy in producing, distributing, treating and disposing of water and we need to make sure that we make every effort we can to avoid wasting energy. For a long time the principals of sustainable development has been assigned to projects, but we continue to look at the principles and make sure they stand up in terms of long term adaptive measures. But we also need to assess the way that treatment may change in the future – so we need to make a full review each time and perhaps reconsider the environment parameters to make sure that they take account of climate change or not.

EUI. Are there any particular technologies that you feel may be helpful?
PC. Increasingly we have been using predictive weather programmes to analyse what weather patterns might happen. The problem is that these are very much on a macro scale and much of the design is based on requirements at a local level. Currently there is a lot of work being put into changing the scale of these computer programs, which predict weather patterns. They will be bringing it down to a more statistically significant level of accuracy at the local level as well.

EUI. What have the EWA been doing in terms of the groundwater directive?
PC. We make a point, where we can, of providing experts to the working groups that are used by the Commission in the development of policy and legislation. We’ve had a representative from the Croatian Association, XX, who has been a very significant input into the background, knowledge and experience that has been used in formulating that particular directive to the point was I was present at a conference where his input was applauded by the European Commission Officer who was responsible for developing the legislation.

We have done the same thing for the floods directive and we are working on river continuity and the effects of effectively adapting to climate change. These are all active working groups within the European Commission.

EUI. In your opinion, how will the impact of too much or too little water have on economic sectors and which economic sectors will be the most severely affected?
PC. Water is obviously fundamental to life but apart from that there are areas, which rely on water from the point of view of tourists. If we don’t get enough snow in the skiing stations, for example, then that will severely affect the economy of parts of France and Italy, the same is true in parts of Spain and Portugal where a lot of commerce has been developed around golf. Then of course there is the argument that people should not be spreading such a scarce resource just to create gold courses. It is a complicated issue.

EUI. Finally, what are your hopes and predictions for the future of European water management?
PC. I would like more of the work that is being implemented around the water framework directive to continue to other parts of Europe, as has been done in the UK, France and Germany. There is still a lot to do but there is a lot of assistance available to the newer member states. There will always be complaints around making sure that money is spent the best way but by and large it has usually had a beneficial effect on the life of the public in terms of producing water of a proper quality and more importantly improving the environment.

I think we need to be able to transfer our knowledge and make people understand that on the wider basis we shouldn’t try and do everything at once but rather work towards the end goal.

The European Water Association (EWA) is an independent non-governmental and non-profit making organisation dealing with the management and improvement of the water environment. It was founded on 22 June 1981 as the European Water Pollution Control Association. The scope of the Association was enlarged in 1999 with the change of name to the European Water Association.

It is one of the major professional associations in Europe that covers the whole water sector, wastewater as well as drinking water and water related waste. With member associations from nearly all European countries the EWA consists of most European Union Member States, including all countries from Central and Eastern Europe which joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. Other European countries represented within the EWA are Croatia, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia and Montenegro, Norway, and Switzerland.

FAST FACTS

• World Water Day is celebrated every year on March 22nd
• 2008 is the International Year of Sanitation
• Water scarcity affects every continent and four in 10 people in the world
• By 2025, nearly two billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water shortage, where water resources per person fall below the recommended level of 500 cubic metres per year
•  Poor water quality can increase the risk of diarrhoeal disease including cholera, typhoid, fever, salmonellosis, other gastrointestinal viruses and dysentery
•  In the WHO European region, 120 million people do not have access to safe water

Source: WHO

About Peter Cook
Peter Cook is the President of EWA for the period of office April 2007 to May 2009. Part of the water industry for 40 years, Cook has a sound commercial knowledge of engineering consultancy, construction and of water services delivery both in the United Kingdom and overseas.