A note on the European Water Resilience Strategy from a water resilience perspective. A turning point?
Written by Josefina Maestu and Dani Gaillard-Picher on behalf of Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) with the support of the Water Resilience for Economic Resilience Initiative (WR4ER).
Introduction
The adoption by the European Commission of the Water Resilience Strategy for Europe on the 4th of June of 2025 is a key milestone for the water community. It sets out an ambitious integrated agenda to secure and manage water in the context of the triple planetary crisis. The strategy prioritizes water both within the EU and globally and has already created political momentum, for example, through its inclusion in the EU’s 2024-2029 Political Guidelines.
Through this perspectives paper, AGWA with the support of the Water Resilience for Economic Resilience initiative (WR4ER) aims to foster a shared understanding of resilience. Herein, we analyze the European Water Resilience Strategy aiming to better understand how it supports and contributes to water resilience. We do so by building on a shared understanding of the definition of resilience and a framework of analysis developed over the years by different organizations. We look at the objectives, actions, and enablers of the Strategy and raise some critical questions.
Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy at teh launch of the Water Resilience Strategy for Europe
A shared understanding of water resilience? A proposal for a common framework for analysis
According to the OECD “The resilience of a water system refers to its ability, by its design and operation, to sustain its functions and expected services under stresses and shocks. A resilient water system must be able to not only resist and rebound, but also to adapt and to transform in order to thrive under change”.
The resilience of a water system refers to its ability, by its design and operation, to sustain its functions and expected services under stresses and shocks. A resilient water system must be able to not only resist and rebound, but also to adapt and to transform in order to thrive under change. From a management perspective, building water system resilience is an optimal control problem -- the water system is dynamic and must be actively managed over time to continue to sustain its function. [1]
For water systems, particularly at the basin scale, resilience is grounded in the ecology, climate, and hydrology of the natural system as well as the human alterations of that system, which enable it to function in a number of different potential stable states and deliver expected services (Boltz et al., 2019[15]) (Rockström et al., 2014[2]). [2]
A resilient system includes some characteristics:
a. Persistence refers to a system’s ability to maintain coherent, “normal” functions under change without altering its design and operation.
b. Adaptability refers to a system’s ability to maintain coherent functions by modifying its design and operation to accommodate change.
c. Transformability refers to a system’s ability to modify its design and operation to establish a “new normal” function when pushed beyond a tipping point that precludes maintaining its prior state.
Water resilience, indeed, is not only about reducing consumption, ensuring sufficient supply or the ability to withstand and absorb shocks. It is also about having robust systems, about redundancy and especially about building in the flexibility to be able to adjust, and reorganize, transforming to avoid negative consequences in the future and to even thrive under changing circumstances, also taking into account social and ecological resilience as key components.[3]
Do the objectives and priority actions in the EU Water Resilience Strategy align with this understanding of resilience?
The objectives
The EU Water Resilience strategy has interpreted the concept of resilience differently, building upon the long track record of the EU in the protection and improvement of water resources thanks to the Water Framework Directive, the Floods Directive, Nature Restoration Regulation and various water quality directives. The Strategy’s key objectives of restoring and protecting the water cycle and of building a water smart economy have, indeed, the potential for improving the adaptability and transformability of the water systems in the European Union. Improving the water cycle is the basis for ensuring coherent, “normal” functions under change without altering its design and operation. This, and the promotion of a water smart economy, can be transformative. However, with increased climatic variability, merely adapting will not suffice. Transforming economic structures will be essential to cope with the emerging “new normal.”
The actions
Some actions in the strategy contribute to a more robust water system and are no-regret measures that contribute to the provision of services under both relative stationary conditions and under stresses and shocks. These include, for instance, greater control over water and smart water metering, promoting industrial water savings and minimum performance standards, investment to reduce municipal leakages , improved management of freshwater balances and accounting of water flows. Having water scarcity indicators and drought and flood plans will make for more robust water systems, better prepared for known or predictable risks.
In the context of climate change, some level of redundancy is required to ensure the functions of the water systems, even if there are some failures in parts of the system. This means that in order to be prepared, investment is needed in certain actions proposed in the EC strategy, such as demand management, technical efficiency and reuse, and building new supplies, including through desalination and storage. It may not be a question of a hierarchy but of having alternatives to avoid failures in the provision of water services and ensuring water security more broadly when there are parts of the system that fail. This may include measures such as nature-based solutions, improving water retention on land, and importantly in pollution prevention at source, limiting nutrient pollution. These actions will indeed increase resilience.
A resilient water system, however, is mainly based on its flexibility and transformability. Incorporating flexibility to water services operations and water use is key to the management of uncertainty, incorporating the variability and changing futures as they evolve. But when there is extreme change or disruption, transformation may be required, and investments are necessary “to shift system performance to accommodate new norms for key variables”[4]. At the same time structural change may be needed to use less water in the economy. This requires a less water-intensive and less polluting economic structure. There are some actions in the strategy that contribute to flexibility, such as nature-based solutions, the creation of green and blue corridors, or the removal of PFAS. Some of the more disruptive and innovative actions of the strategy contribute to transformability, moving well beyond merely technical measures and aiming for the net reduction of abstractions in the most water intense uses, reducing overexploitation of aquifers, making water count in spatial and town planning, removing perverse incentives, and promoting water pricing and the coordination with sectoral policies - especially the Common Agricultural policy. All these can be game changers. The Strategy offers a well-framed diagnosis of EU water systems challenges where water is a systemic risk and cross-cutting priority for sectoral policies.
Indeed, we need to decouple economic growth from water consumption. We continue to overuse water compared to renewable resources in the long term in some regions of Europe. Despite technological investments aimed at achieving decoupling, few significant positive results have been obtained. Instead of savings, we have observed, especially in the agricultural sector, increased water consumption due to a shift towards more water-intensive crops and a higher number of harvests.[5] From an economic perspective, current economic and financial incentives are hindering this process.[6]
According to different authors, water system resilience requires not only the judicious management of freshwater ecosystems and infrastructure, but also investment in strengthening the social dimensions of water management, use, and equity. Social resilience is defined by the coping, adaptive, and transformative capacities of water-dependent systems and their users, and underpins the resilience of managed water systems (e.g., (Keck and Sakdapolrak, 2013[20]) (Langridge, Christian- Smith and Lohse, 2006[21]).[7] In this sense the European Water Resilience strategy points to the importance of citizen participation, including involving citizens to protect themselves.
The enabling areas
The strategy proposes different types of enabling areas related to governance, finance, data and knowledge, and innovation and skills. Some of the enablers will contribute to a more robust water system in the EU such as those related to enforcement of existing Directives, increasing funding, digitalization of water services, data sharing, protecting the critical infrastructure and improving monitoring systems and the use of earth observations for better prediction. The strategy makes a business case for investing in sustainable water management and innovation which is argued will maintain Europe’s future competitiveness. It calls for a major investment mobilization, notably €15 billion from the European Investment Bank. Investing in system robustness and redundancy will, indeed, be a major endeavor if this is the path considered to improve resilience of our water system. Future choices may be limited and dependent on analyzing the costs and benefits of different alternatives.
But building resilience through increasing robustness and redundancy may not be enough in the context of the current climate emergency, or the required investments might be too expensive. It may be valuable to prioritize some enablers to ensure flexibility and transformability as well. Some actions may be game changers, like the establishment of ambitious efficiency targets (reduction in use by at least 10% by 2030 across households, farms, and industry), the digitalization of water services operations and water use control, and investment in open data and data sharing, including the one stop shop Earth observation. However, the emphasis on governance changes, such as the coordination of sectoral policies, incorporating the important role of spatial planning, removing harmful subsidies, and reviewing incentives for farmers, will be much more difficult to implement and will require decisive political will and leadership in order to prioritize them in the context of the climate emergency. Involving citizens in these process to protect themselves is, however, fundamental in Europe. It is democratic and cost-effective and requires careful consideration, especially in the context of data observation, water stewardship and early warning systems.
Conclusion and open questions
The European Water Resilience Strategy must be assessed not only on how it helps address today’s risks, but also whether it helps to acknowledge and navigate the deep uncertainty about tomorrow’s choices. Any future scenario must not assume that water quantity, quality and value will be the same in the future as it is today. The Strategy must, therefore, be robust and integrate redundancy, but also flexibility and flexion points across time to be able to choose different pathways in the future, to allow for course correction and innovation. Building resilience is an ongoing and iterative process that involves systems thinking, including elements of social and ecological resilience. So, the annual stocktaking moments that are planned will be vital to the strategy’s success and potential realignment, while providing an important opportunity for potential partners to plan how best to work together to facilitate implementation of the many flagship actions.
In addition, the Strategy’s success will depend on the formulation of a clear implementation action plan, with an adequate associated budget and available resources. There is a risk that the multiplicity of flagship actions do not necessarily succeed in pulling the rope in the same direction. Especially if funding is limited, these actions may remain unimplemented or create less impact than expected.
However, the Strategy is not a legally binding document, and it seems to lack enforcement tools, especially for polluters. There is no proposal for a central authority to ensure alignment across the EU programmes and member states. A number of questions, therefore, remain, such as:
What will make this Strategy more successful than the Water Framework Directive targets in terms of implementation, funding and enforcement?
Why can countries and sectors be expected to work better together now? What has changed?
How can it create coherence with national and sub-national planning processes and address issues of sovereignty?
How will country dialogues support implementation?
The ultimate success of the European Water Resilience Strategy will be determined by the endorsement by member states and the ability of each of member state to support sound and sustainable water management practices that acknowledge the deep uncertainties of ongoing climate change impacts across, between, and within sectors and at different governance scales.
The follow up proposals in the EC Water Resilience Strategy for the development and adoption of a European-wide Climate Adaptation Plan, the EIB Sustainable Water Advisory Facility, and the Water Resilience Investment Accelerator (to ensure that investments are truly supporting long-term resilience), the development of a Water Resilience R&I strategy, the advancement of data center sustainability, the establishment of a European Water Academy, and the creation of a Water Resilience Forum are all ambitious proposals , even in the context of the EU. Further compliance could be encouraged by providing integrated overarching support and implementation assistance, such as by supporting Member States to establish clear national targets in line with the Strategy and to monitor progress, or by providing them with specifically designed guidance on strategic resource planning that builds in resilience, illustrated with specific and relevant case studies and benchmarking tools.
As we step up to help make this vision a reality, the EU is seen as a strong champion for water resilience and multilateralism in the global arena at a time when leadership is very much needed. Everyone has a role to play to make the Strategy and its follow-up actions a tangible success.
[1] Casey Brown (1), Fred Boltz (2) and Kathleen Dominique (2022) OECD, STRATEGIC INVESTMENT PATHWAYS FOR RESILIENT WATER SYSTEMS - ENVIRONMENT WORKING PAPER NO. 202 (link)
[2] Casey Brown (1), Fred Boltz (2) and Kathleen Dominique (2022) OECD, STRATEGIC INVESTMENT PATHWAYS FOR RESILIENT WATER SYSTEMS - ENVIRONMENT WORKING PAPER NO. 202 (link)
[3] -
[4] Casey Brown (1), Fred Boltz (2) and Kathleen Dominique (2022) OECD, STRATEGIC INVESTMENT PATHWAYS FOR RESILIENT WATER SYSTEMS - ENVIRONMENT WORKING PAPER NO. 202 (link)
[5] Carlos Mario Gómez and Dionisio Pérez-Blanco, "Simple myths and basic maths about greening irrigation" in Water Resources Management, 28, 2014, pp 4035-4044.
[6] Hanemann, W. M. The economic conception of water. Water Crisis: myth or reality, 61, 2006, pp 74-76.
[7] Casey Brown (1), Fred Boltz (2) and Kathleen Dominique (2022) OECD, STRATEGIC INVESTMENT PATHWAYS FOR RESILIENT WATER SYSTEMS - ENVIRONMENT WORKING PAPER NO. 202 (link)