Recital 29

(29)The water resources of the Union are increasingly under pressure, resulting in permanent or temporary water scarcity in some areas of the Union. The Union’s ability to respond to the increasing pressures on water resources could be improved through a wider reuse of treated urban wastewater, limiting freshwater abstraction from surface and groundwater bodies. Therefore, the reuse of treated urban wastewater should be encouraged and applied whenever appropriate, especially in water-stressed areas, and for all appropriate purposes, while ensuring the minimum ecological flow of the receiving waters and taking into account the need to ensure that the objectives of good ecological and chemical status of the receiving bodies, as defined in Directive 2000/60/EC, are met. To achieve this, Member States should carry out monitoring of the impact of the reuse of treated urban wastewater on the minimum ecological flow of receiving waters in their assessment of impacts carried out under Directive 2000/60/EC. The potential for the reuse of treated urban wastewater should be assessed while taking into account the river basin management plans established under Directive 2000/60/EC and Member States’ decisions under Article 2(2) of Regulation (EU) 2020/741 of the European Parliament and of the Council ²¹ , as well as the need to ensure that the objectives of good ecological and chemical status of the receiving bodies, as defined in Directive 2000/60/EC, are met. The reinforcement of the requirements for the treatment of urban wastewater, and the actions to better monitor, track and reduce pollution at source, will have impacts on the quality of treated urban wastewater, and will therefore support water reuse. Where water reuse serves the purpose of agricultural irrigation, it should be carried out in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2020/741. Where appropriate to ensure the safe reuse of treated urban wastewater, Member States should consider quaternary treatment for the urban wastewater that is reused or will be reused. Measures on promoting the reuse of treated urban wastewater and on such reuse itself should be considered in strategies on water resilience at Member State level, when such strategies are available.