Assessing the European Water Stewardship Standard in the Context ...

1 Introduction 1
1 Introduction
Water is indispensable for life. All living organisms and ecosystems on our planet depend on
its existence and availability. Falling as rain, issuing from springs, flowing through rivers,
gathering in lakes and wetlands, finally ending up in the oceans this precious resource has
given rise to an extraordinary diversity and abundance of living forms. Water enabled human
civilizations to grow and prosper.
Though being a renewable resource it must not be considered to be infinite. According to
SALETH & DINAR (2004), freshwater resources might reach their limits towards the end of the
21 st century. In some regions severe water stress due to water constraints is imminent and will
increase in the course of climate change. Altogether 80 countries, with 40% percent of the
world’s population, were suffering from water shortages by the mid-1990s (CSD 1997).
Further it is predicts that by 2025, about 1.8 billion people will live in regions threatened by
water scarcity, which means that two out of three people would live under conditions of water
stress (FAO 2007a). The United Nations has responded to these threats by declaring the
period of 2005 until 2015 as a decade of worldwide conservation of water resources
(UNDESA 2012).
Europe benefits from a geographically privileged situation as water resources are generally
abundant. Still recent surveys reveal that some parts of Europe are experiencing water scarcity
and floods. In 2003 widespread droughts affected over 100 million people, a third of the
European Union (EU) territory, at an expense of billions of Euros (EC 2006). These threats
have led to a heightened awareness in Europe towards the use of water. In addition the EU put
pressure on Member States to protect water resources by bringing into force a new directive in
2000. This directive is framing policy towards an integrated water management and is also
known as the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (EU 2000).
Further industrial and agricultural business realised the need of sustainable water governance
to be included in their business strategy. In 2008 the development of a sustainable water
management (SWM) standard started on a European level throughout a stakeholder process of
interested parties such as agriculture, industry and cities coordinated by the non-governmental
organisation, the European Water Partnership (EWP) (EWP 2011a). The idea is to manage
water in a comprehensive way and therefore a standard was designed to monitor and mitigate
effects of water use, which was given the name European Water Stewardship (EWS) standard.
To meet the idea of a comprehensive approach the standard is based on four principles
referring to water abstraction, water quality, water-cycled related ecosystems and more
generally, good water governance (EWP 2011b).