{"id":573229,"date":"2026-05-08T16:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T16:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573229\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T16:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T16:36:07","slug":"where-in-europe-is-tap-water-the-most-and-least-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/573229\/","title":{"rendered":"Where in Europe is tap water the most and least safe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By&nbspAlessio Dell’Anna<\/a>&nbsp&&nbspvideo by L\u00e9o Arnoux<\/p>\n

\n Published on 08\/05\/2026 – 10:18 GMT+2\u2022Updated
\n 10:21\n <\/p>\n

Groundwater is one of the most critically endangered resources across the EU. <\/p>\n

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More than 20% across the bloc is in a poor chemical status, meaning that harmful substances, such as mercury, cadmium, and others, are above levels set by the EU Water Framework Directive, says the European Environment Agency.<\/p>\n

Adding to the pressure is the enormous social and environmental cost of treating it for drinking and sanitation.<\/p>\n

Just treating nitrates \u2014 often found in fertilisers \u2014 is thought to cost the EU as much as \u20ac320 billion per year.<\/a>The EU’s limit is 50 milligrams per litre, but according to the European Commission, that level was exceeded at 14% of Europe’s groundwater measuring stations.<\/p>\n

Who’s got the healthiest tap water?<\/p>\n

Europe’s huge investments in groundwater sanitation do, however, seem to be effective. <\/p>\n

Nineteen of the 20 countries with the best sanitation and drinking water in the world are European, with Japan being the only exception, according to the Environmental Performance Index.<\/a><\/p>\n

Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the UK scored a perfect 100 points for protecting human health from unsafe drinking water and sanitation.<\/p>\n

The worst rates in the continent emerged in Moldova (50 points), Georgia (51.7) and Albania (54.1), with three EU countries also in the lowest 10 spots in Europe: Latvia (59.10), Lithuania (58.40) and Romania (56).<\/p>\n

In addition, existing legislation, the EU is keeping a close eye on its water resources.<\/p>\n

In January 2022, it passed the first drinking water watchlist<\/a>, with the aim of tracking beta-estradiol and nonylphenol levels \u2014 two endocrine-disrupting compounds which mimic, block, or interfere with the body\u2019s hormones.<\/p>\n

How concerning is groundwater pollution in the EU?<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, groundwater chemicals remain a problem, particularly considering that groundwater supplies roughly 25% of agricultural irrigation and 65% of drinking water in the EU.<\/p>\n

“Around 80% of all wastewater worldwide enters water bodies without undergoing treatment”, say researchers at the Water Atlas, a groundwater purity index created by German think tank Heinrich B\u00f6ll Foundation.<\/p>\n

“The idea that rivers would clean themselves soon proved to be an illusion: rivers and lakes became stinking, toxic cesspools,” they add.<\/p>\n

The Water Atlas<\/a> has mapped groundwater bodies with a good and bad chemical status in Europe, based on the EU’s Water Directive standards.<\/p>\n

The results in some countries are concerning. <\/p>\n

In Luxembourg, 79% of mapped groundwater bodies failed to achieve a good chemical status in 2025, 55% in the Czech Republic, 41% in Belgium and 40% in Germany.<\/p>\n

Pesticides remain one of the main threats to water quality. For example, trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) has been detected in 94% of 36 tap water samples collected in 11 EU countries, according to the Water Atlas.<\/p>\n

Many pesticides also contain PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as forever chemicals), which were detected at 23,000 locations across Europe.<\/p>\n

Pharmaceutical compounds \u2014 with more than 175 identified in Europe’s groundwater bodies \u2014 and microplastics pose additional environmental pressures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By&nbspAlessio Dell’Anna&nbsp&&nbspvideo by L\u00e9o Arnoux Published on 08\/05\/2026 – 10:18 GMT+2\u2022Updated 10:21 Groundwater is one of the most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[190113,40217,1397,196095,90,56,54,55,96299,6053],"class_list":["post-573229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-contamination-of-water","tag-drinking-water","tag-environment","tag-european-environment-agency","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-water-resources","tag-water-shortage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}