In 2018, the European Commission will publish its report on the assessment of the second River Basin Management Programme (RBMPs) and will start the process of evaluating the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (EC, 2017a). To accompany and inform this process, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has produced this report on the state of Europe's water. In addition, the Water Information System for Europe (WISE) Freshwater visualisation tool presents more, and more detailed, results. Eleftheria Kampa and Josselin Rouillard, both from Ecologic Institute which is a partner in the European Topic Centre on Inland Waters, Coastal and Marine, contributed as authors to the EEA Report.

The main aim of EU water policy is to ensure that a sufficient quantity of good-quality water is available for both people's needs and the environment. The Water Framework Directive (WFD), which came into force in 2000, established a framework for the assessment, management, protection and improvement of the quality of water resources across the EU. Since December 2015, EU Member States have been publishing the second river basin management plans (RBMPs) for achieving the environmental objectives of the WFD. These plans are updates of the first RBMPs, which were published in 2009. By spring 2018, 25 Member States had reported to the Water Information System for Europe (WISE).