Natural Groundwater Quality

The European Water Framework Directive forms the basic legislation for the protection of the European aquatic environment. The Groundwater Directive (GD) was adopted in 2006 to supplement the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and to deal with the specific questions of groundwater quality and to ensure good status of groundwater. At the same time there is still a poor perception of the importance of groundwater by many people involved in civic management and public policy. Against this background a consortium of European scientists conducted detailed studies of water quality in Europe, focusing on the natural baseline quality of groundwater as the basis for understanding geochemical processes in aquifers, and providing a framework for defining what constitutes pollution. This text is the result of these important studies, and constitutes a key reference on natural water quality of aquifers. It presents a series of thematic chapters together with chapters on representative groundwater systems in Europe which illustrate the main processes and evolution of water quality.