CONCAWE Review • Spring 2004

Volume 13, issue no. 1: CONservation of Clean Air and Water in Europe was CONCAWE’s original ‘raison d’être’ and gave the association its name. Water quality issues have been less in focus in recent years, partly as a result of earlier advances, in particular the widespread introduction of biological treatment of waste waters and a general improvement in European water quality. With the promulgation of the Water Framework Directive in 2000 and ongoing work on daughter Directives such as the Groundwater Directive, water quality is once again about to take front stage.

CONCAWE is getting ready for the challenges that lie ahead to arrive at fit-for-purpose and cost effective legislation. In this issue we include a feature on ‘whole effluent assessment’, a relatively new way of looking at water quality, which aims at assessing the biological and other effects of water discharges on the environment rather than focusing on the more traditional physicochemical properties of the waters.