Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Drinking Water in Germany: A Case
Study of High Quality Drinking Water
12.1 Introduction
In Germany, two important federal laws, the Federal Water Act (1957) and the
Waste Water Charges Act (1976), constitute essential elements of water resources
and wastewater management. In 2002, when the Seventh Amendment
to the
Federal Water Act came into force,
Germany completed the transposition of the
European Water Framework Directive (2000) into federal framework legislation,
thereby creating the basis for achieving the EU-wide objective of good status for all
bodies of water
“
(German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conser-
vation and Nuclear Safety (BMU)
2014
). According to the federal Waste Water
Charges Act (last amended in 2005) and supplementary provisions of the Germany
federal L
”
ä
nder (i.e. the individual states within the Federation),
“
charges must be
paid for waste water discharged into water bodies
, and water and wastewater are
legally bound to comply with the principles of polluter pays and full cost recovery
(BMU
2014
) and Bauby (
2011
). The goal of the Act was to reduce the quantity of
discharged water to a minimum. In addition, the majority of the L
”
nder (or states)
also levy charges for groundwater abstraction, and some also for abstraction from
surface water bodies. The management of water resources covers whole river basin
districts, including the Danube, Rhine, Maas, Ems, Weser, Elbe, Eider, Oder,
Schlei/Trave, and Warnow/Peene (BMU
2014
).
Currently, the German water industry has achieved high performance, including
long-term safety of supply and disposal, high drinking water quality, high waste-
water disposal standards, and high customer satisfaction (Association of Drinking
Water from Reservoirs (ATT) et al.
2011
). Thus the purpose of this chapter is to
describe Germany
ä
s approaches in water management. The second and third
sections provide a pro
'
le of drinking water supply and water consumption in
Germany, respectively. Since wastewater treatment technology in Germany ranks
the highest in the world, the purpose of Sect.
12.4
is to demonstrate the current
status of German wastewater
treatment and provide an overview of
the
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