Climate Change
The White paper: Adapting to climate change (2009) has been the starting point for the European Commission for a process on mainstreaming climate adaptation into EU policies, identifying where revision of EU policy. An adaptation Strategy on EU level is foreseen for 2013. The White Paper highlights the need "to promote strategies which increase the resilience to climate change of health, property and the productive functions of land, inter alia by improving the management of water resources and ecosystems.“
Successful adaptation to the impacts of climate change on water depends not just on effective national and European water regulations, but also on the extent to which water management can be integrated into other sectoral policies such as agriculture, energy, cohesion and health. Adaptation is being taken into account in the review or implementation of other relevant environmental policies, in particular biodiversity, coastal and marine environment.