As part of its work within the ETC-ICM, Ecologic Institute has contributed as lead author to a new European Environment Agency (EEA) report examining the multiple pressures that agriculture put on Europe's water. The report shows that that a wider uptake of sustainable agricultural practices such as organic farming, agroecological approaches and nature-based solutions is necessary to protect the water environment. To achieve this, ambitious measures to promote sustainable agriculture must be adopted in the upcoming EU common agricultural policy 2021-2027.

Ecologic Institute has recently launched the Diagnostic Water Governance Tool, which is aimed at both water governance practitioners and researchers around the world. The tool provides a diagnosis of case-specific water governance as well as recommendations for appropriate instruments, with a focus on coordination and cooperation improvement.

This user manual supports the members of the German Roundtable on Marine Litter in using the internet platform https://muell-im-meer.de. In the internal area of the platform, members have various possibilities to present their organization and its activities for reducing marine litter as well as to participate in working groups. Distribution list maintenance and communication within the Roundtable on Marine Litter is also handled and documented via the platform.

Climate change is already causing an increase in extreme weather events, including an increase in the frequency and duration of periods of dry and drought conditions. In this paper, colleagues of the Emschergenossenschaft and Ecologic Institute summarize discussions on coordination and cooperation approaches for low water management and prevention at a workshop in the Emscher region.

This FIThydro Brief, written by Ecologic Institute's Hugh McDonald and Gerardo Anzaldúa, assesses the current and future demand for fish-friendly hydropower in Europe. It concludes that EU and national policy and economic developments offer a chance to innovate and address rising social and environmental concerns about hydropower's negative impacts.

This Briefing Paper examines coordination and implementation challenges between the water and agricultural sectors in relation to water quantity in the context of WFD implementation in the Spanish Guadalquivir river basin. The challenges are interlinked by the underlying difficulty of imposing unpopular decisions against the will of powerful actors in the agricultural sector. To address these challenges, the authors suggest various coordination instruments based on incentives, voluntary cooperation, persuasion and information exchange.The Briefing Paper presents one of six analyses of cross-sectoral coordination challenges that were conducted as part of the STEER research project and on which separate Briefing Papers are available.

The completed governance analysis shows that coordination in the Emscher catchment area is already effective. There is room for improvement when it comes to involving citizens and planning processes should also be characterised by a higher degree of flexibility. The analysis provides recommendations. This paper constitutes one of six analyses of cross-sectoral challenges in water governance. These have been conducted as part of the STEER research project and results are published in separate analyses and position papers.

In a new scientific article published in Agricultural Water Management, Dr. Josselin Rouillard, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, and co-author Dr. Jean-Daniel Rinaudo (Brgm) examine strategies to manage the overexploitation of water by agriculture. The research focused on innovative water allocation regimes involving strong collaborative approaches between regulators and water users.

In this paper the authors, among them Ecologic Institute's Ulf Stein, focus on the governmental bottlenecks in the Implementation of the European Water Framework Directive. The lack of horizontal, inter-sectoral communication; the insufficient land reserves; human resources and; the lack of financing were the areas that emerged as the most pressing issues. Further evidence suggests that the interaction of the WFD with other policy areas regulated at the European level might require closer inspection.

In this publication, Doris Knoblauch (Ecologic Institute), Lorenzo Felicetti, and Ulf Stein (Ecologic Institute) shed light on the untapped potential of ICT solutions in water management across Berlin, Milan, Copenhagen, Paris and Sofia, the five cities analysed in the project digital-water.city. In the analysis, the cross-cutting nature of digital water governance, and thereby its multifunctionality in terms of policy goals became evident.

The FIThydro Policy Brief presents summaries of selected key outputs from the H2020 FIThydro project, which are relevant for policy makers, managers and operators involved in the commissioning and operation of hydropower plants.

This brochure is a 'light' version of Eurostat's publication 'Sustainable development in the European Union – 2020 monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context', conveying its main messages in a visual and concise way. The brochure provides an updated snapshot of the current situation concerning 100 indicators related to the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). It thus provides a snapshot of the key trends related to sustainable development in the European Union. Ecologic Institute's authors covered the chapters on SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), SDG 15 (Life on Land) SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). The publication is available for download.

This publication is the fourth of Eurostat’s regular reports monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an EU context. The monitoring report provides a statistical presentation of trends relating to the SDGs in the EU over the past five years ('short-term') and, when sufficient data is available, over the past 15 years ('long-term'). Ecologic Institute's authors covered the chapters on SDG2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), SDG 15 (Life on Land) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). The publication is available for download.

The project examined the effects, processes and support options for implementing innovative infrastructure coupling. Current developments, the associated transformation processes including supporting and hindering factors as well as potential sustainability effects of coupled infrastructure solutions were examined. The focus is on innovative, i.e. not established, couplings (understood as niche innovations) in the transport, energy, water, wastewater, waste management and information and communication technologies (ICT) sectors. The present volume provides a summary of the results, which are available in three sub-reports.