The evolution of the EU drinking water policy towards a source-to-mouth approach

ABSTRACT

The four-decade evolution of drinking water policy of the European Union is analysed using a policy change framework through documentary analysis and in-depth interviews. Our findings suggest that this policy has always targeted the protection of human health while inching closer to the concept of ‘safely managed drinking water’, which implies the protection of the sources of drinking water and the application of a risk-based approach to the entire water supply chain. Influenced by a variety of factors, it has experienced incremental changes leading to more comprehensive provisions while seeking flexibility to accommodate the diversity of Member States forming the Union.

KEYWORDS:

• Water policy
• policy change
• European Union drinking water policy
• risk-based approach

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the journal editor for their helpful remarks that significantly improved this paper. We are also grateful to the interviewees for sharing their knowledge and experience with us, and to Dr Nuria Hernández-Mora for her feedback on previous versions of the paper.

Author contribution statement

Delia M. Andries: conceptualization, methodology, literature review, interviewing stakeholders, coding interviews, review of legal texts, formal analysis, visualization, writing - original draft. Lucia De Stefano: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, funding acquisition, writing - review and editing. Alberto Garrido: conceptualization, supervision, funding acquisition, writing - review and editing.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2024.2318248

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Botín Foundation