On Tuesday 8 November, Sirpa Pietikäinen MEP (FI, EPP) on behalf of GLOBE EU and Judith Merkies MEP (NL, S&D) on behalf of the Water Intergroup of the European Parliament hosted a policy dialogue between legislators and  researchers from Spain, Germany and the Netherlands to explore water scarcity-related issues and to discuss future policy options informed by the findings of the latest FP7 research projects on the subject. The dialogue took place in the framework of the KNOSSOS project, a partnership between UNEP, GLOBE and the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP); the first briefing on Water Scarcity was launched on the occasion.

Download the main briefing and the summary. The following paragraphs summarise the key points by each of the speakers.

Andrew Farmer, Director of Research and Head of Industry, Waste and Water Programme, at the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) presented the main elements of the Water Scarcity Policy Briefing which was distributed at the event. He highlighted important EU-funded research and policy potential in this field with a focus on understanding the future impacts of water scarcity and on the role of models and scenarios in policy development. To highlight the work on ‘water saving potential’ he suggested a large amount can be done through better decisions – for example in North Mediterranean, water saving potential is 45% of 2025 expected demand – 60% of potential is from irrigation.

Luisa Prista, Head of Environmental Technologies Unit, DG Research, European Commission, stated that science is the foundation of EU policy. However, strengthening the links between research and policy in the water sector and in environmental sciences in general is still needed. Some of the barriers for better science policy integration include the disparity between research cycles and policy cycles, the different languages of the EU (23) and the multitude of projects. By organising events such as “Science Meets Policy”, the Commission is able to strengthen action on the policy side based on research results. She also emphasised the role of the Parliament in the Science-Policy interface process.

Philippe Quevauviller, Scientific Officer, DG Research, European Commission gave a brief presentation on how to make Science-Policy interfacing operational. He underlined the difficulties facing policy makers and researchers in the EU and the importance of understanding policy cycles in order to have the greatest impact. Some of the challenges include horizontal cooperation among different sectors who are impacted (i.e. water, industry, agriculture) and vertical cooperation (i.e. translating relevant policy from the EU to suit national, regional and local needs).

Prof. Ana Iglesias of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain, shared her expertise on climate change and water scarcity. She presented the results of her FP7 research project, CIRCE, and underlined the need to understand future water availability challenges in order to develop proper policy responses. By developing models that incorporate different policy scenarios, her research project was able to predict the future of water availability. She stated that adaptation is a key factor that will shape the severity of climate change impacts on food production and water and that EU policy such as the Water Framework Directive and the CAP provide suitable tools to face future challenges. 

Prof. Daniel Hering from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, presented further FP7 research about the impact of drivers and stressors (i.e. climate change and water scarcity) on ecosystem services. He asserted that ecosystems now face complex, multi-stressor situation and so the need for models as indicators of future scenarios is more and more important. Furthermore, he outlined some of the data challenges that researchers and policy makers face in terms of environmental data. While there is a vast amount of data and research available through thousands of research projects and monitoring programmes, much of it is not easily accessible or comparable. He suggests the establishment of an “open-access culture” in environmental research, the central storage of original data, and maintaining existing long-term monitoring datasets in order to avoid the loss of data and the overlap of new research.

Henny van Lanen of Wageningen University, The Netherlands, presented some key EU-funded research projects on drought and water scarcity projections and modeling including WATCH (WATer and global CHange), WaterCoRe, MIRAGE, XEROCHORE, DROUGHT-R&SPI and DEWFORA. Some of the key challenges that researchers and policy makers face is that it is difficult to forecast multi-month/seasonal drought and that there are many predictions for the future of water resources, drought and water scarcity. This makes the identification of policy and management responses a major challenge. However, these challenges should not lead to inaction. Continued research and improved accessibility and data sharing in Europe will contribute to the solutions. Based on this, flexible, long-term planning for adaptation and robust, “no-regret strategies” (beneficial even without climate change) can be developed into responsible and effective water scarcity and drought policy.

To conclude, both policy makers and researchers underlined the need for similar events in the future in order to open communication channels and create effective, research-based policy.