Legal Requirements

In Poland and the EU, water consumption is regulated by the provisions of the EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework of Community action in the field of water policy. The Directive calls for sustainable management and protection of water resources. It sets specific goals for the EU Member States, including:

• to meet the demand for water in households, agriculture and industry,
• to promote sustainable water use,
• to protect water bodies and ecosystems with a good ecological status,
• to improve the quality of water bodies and ecosystems degraded by human activity,
• to minimize ground water pollution,
• to minimize the negative impacts of floods and droughts.

The Water Framework Directive introduces measures to ensure the protection and sustainable use of water in a system of river basins. The Member States are required to develop water management plans in the framework of the river basin as well as domestic water and environmental protection programs. In line with the provisions of the Polish Water Law and the Framework Water Directive, the basic water management unit is a water body. Water bodies are further subdivided into bodies of surface water (including coastal and transitional waters, artificial or heavily modified bodies of water) and bodies of ground water.

After the introduction of a new data gathering system and new measurement units in the reports, our water consumption is no longer compared with previous years' data