Protecting Rivers and Lakes

The goal of water protection in Germany is to conserve or restore a good ecological status of all waters. The input of harmful substances into waters must therefore be prevented. Furthermore, waters, their banks and their environment must be conserved or restored in such a way so that biota typical to the respective habitat can develop there.

In order to reach these goals there are

 

• Strict requirements for water quality of rivers and lakes - and the related
• Expansion of municipal sewage treatment plants and industry with improved purification technology (see. 'Sewage Treatment Plants - Info'),
• Regular monitoring of water quality and water structure (see. 'Waste water from Industry') and
• Close international cooperation with riparian countries, which has also led to internationally binding agreements.
• Furthermore the EC Water Framework Directive is of great help, concerning the coordination of water management and harmonisation of water protection (see: 'The European Water Framework Directive and its implementation in Germany').

The results show that on the whole the quality of rivers and lakes has improved over the past 25 years. A clear decrease in the substance pollution of waters and consequently an increase in the oxygen concentration that is essential for fish fauna can be detected:

 

• Heavy metal pollution has decreased considerably over the past 15 years.
• Pollution from organic pollutants, such as benzene, PCB, chlorine pesticides or organic tin compounds is declining, but in some cases is still too high.
• Nitrogen and phosphorous emissions have also declined, although in particular in the case of nitrogen, not to the desired degree.

In future, measures to control water pollution will increasingly focus on reducing so-called diffus sources of pollution, such as inputs from agriculture, rain runoff or inputs from traffic and from other air pollutants.

To achieve these aims a new federal water act came into force in 2002 and the waste water ordinance was amended.

• Water conservation: a social consensus
• Ecological quality for aquatic life
• International River Protection