WATERUN Policy Brief

WATERUN Policy Brief analyses why urban water runoff (UWR) has become a major environmental, public health, and governance challenge in Europe, citing that “urbanisation, soil sealing, and climate‑driven rainfall extremes are significantly altering the urban water cycle” and that runoff transports “diffuse chemical and microbiological pollution into receiving water bodies”.
It provides:
- A detailed overview of the technical, institutional, and regulatory complexities of UWR management.
- An analysis of the evolving EU legal framework, including the recast Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, the Water Framework Directive, the Zero Pollution Action Plan, and the Water Resilience Strategy.
- An assessment of the economic and governance impacts of new EU requirements on cities and utilities.
- A review of barriers to scaling up grey–blue–green solutions and examples of enabling policy instruments.
- A presentation of WATERUN tools and methodologies, validated through case studies in Santiago de Compostela and Aarhus, including bioretention systems, wetlands, and monitoring innovations.
- Stakeholder‑informed policy recommendations to strengthen risk‑based, integrated, and nature‑based approaches to urban runoff management.