The one thing Europe doesn't lack is water - but it's how to manage it as a sustainable resource that's the problem. Now the European Commission is getting tough, giving all 15 member countries a decade to meet exacting water quality standards for all their water resources. Water Pressure covers an environmental disaster in Romania, a prospective member of the EU,and investigates how two EU member states, Portugal and the UK, are coping with the challenge to improve the quality of their water.

Crossing borders

In what has been called one of the worst ecological disasters since the Chernobyl explosion, over 100 tons of cyanide contaminated two major rivers in Romania after a dam containing the heavy metal broke. The effects were lethal; the cyanide decimated all river life in its path. Experts say the river systems could take more than ten years to recover.

But the poisonous tide didn't stop in Romania. The contaminated water washed hundreds of kilometres downstream into Hungary and onward to the Danube and the Black Sea killing untold numbers of fish and aquatic life. Here, the aftermath of the disaster also had a human cost; towns and villages along the river banks have been forced to drink bottled water instead of water from their mains supply. Many local fishermen have lost their livelihoods.

Effluent societies

Next, Water Pressure visits Portugal where the main water issue isn't accidental pollution but one of persistent and untreated industrial and domestic waste.

In 1995 only 1/4 of Portugal's sewage was treated, while the rest flowed directly into its rivers and the sea. EU grants have helped to fund water treatment facilities, but the scramble for tourist development along the Portugese coast has left these facilities lagging far behind.

Getting clean

In London's famous Billingsgate fish market, nestling between exotic and farmed fish, are Dover sole who spend the early stages of their lives in the Thames estuary - a river considered biologically dead just a generation ago.

For years the Thames was the dumping ground for much of London's pollution, but a ban on the dumping of sewage directly into the river has made a dramatic impact on the quality of the water. The river now boasts 116 species of fish and 350 species of invertebrates.

But it's been a long and costly battle for the local water authority and the battle isn't over yet. Until London's Victorian sewage system is upgraded, which may cost Londoners around US$3 billion, the Thames will never be completely free from the threat of sewage pollution.

Water Pressure was produced in collaboration with the European Commission and the WWF European Policy Office.