Additional and sustainable investment is needed if urban waste water treatment in Europe is to meet today's three main challenges - climate change, demographic change and new emerging pollutants, according to a report published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) on 9 October.
EEA notes that energy costs and scarce resources are reasons to promote water efficiency, thus saving it, and that these factors provide an opportunity for wastewater treatment plants to contribute more to water recycling and reuse, as well as to the recovery of resources such as phosphorus, a non-renewable mineral essential to life.
Among the examples of sustainable solutions and investments already in place in Europe, EEA cites the use of retention basins and precipitation reservoirs to manage water flows from flash floods or to reuse treated and cleaned water.
The report, entitled "Urban waste water treatment facing the challenges of the 21st century", also highlights that much has already been done in recent decades to improve urban waste water treatment, with household connection rates to treatment facilities ranging from 97% in Western and Central Europe to around 70% in Southern, South Eastern and Eastern Europe. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)