According to the quality report drafted in collaboration with the Federal Environment Agency, the quality of Austria’s spring water is (as usual) even considered excellent. In over 80 percent of 2,000 groundwater measuring sites no (relevant) pollutant concentrations were found.

The biological water quality of about 90 percent of Austrian watercourses is quality class I or II. Environment Minister Josef Pröll is proud of this result, especially so as a positive trend can also be identified in hitherto critical areas. The Environment Minister now intends to gradually eliminate the remaining weak spots in order to reach the mandatory water quality targets set out for all groundwater and surface water bodies.

Pröll mainly refers to the high nitrate, atrazine and desethylatrazine concentrations found in the extensively used farm-lands in Austria’s southeast and east. The nitrate threshold of 45 mg/l is still exceeded in 13.5 percent of the 2,000 groundwater measuring sites, he says.

Pröll: “In terms of the area, this means that about ten percent of the 149 interconnected groundwater zones are identified as target areas for measures to control nitrate concentrations. Such target areas no longer need to be identified for the pesticide substances atrazine and desethylatrazine (meanwhile prohibited in Austria), which confirms the strongly decreasing trend for these substances. All other 130 examined substances were found to be below threshold.”

As far as groundwater nitrate concentrations are concerned, the Environment Minister expects that taking adequate measures in agriculture and increasing the number of sewer connections will further help to improve the situation. Yet he also points out that some impacts related to the climate, such as precipitation, cannot be remedied. The Austrian Water Quality Report 2006 (Wassergüte in Österreich 2006) can be downloaded from the Internet website http://publikationen.lebensministerium.at
(Source: aqua press Int. 1/2007)