Proposal for a National Blueprint Framework to Monitor Progress on Water-Related Sustainable Development Goals in Europe

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) underpinned by 169 targets presents national governments with huge challenges for implementation. We developed a proposal for a National Blueprint Framework (NBF) with 24 water-related indicators, centered on SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation for all), each with a specific target. We applied the NBF to 28 EU Member States (EU-28) and conclude that: The current SDG 6 indicators are useful for monitoring progress toward water-related targets but their usefulness can be improved by focusing more on their practical implementation. The extension of SDG 6 with complementary indicators (e.g. for the circular economy of water) and quantitative policy targets is urgently needed. This will benefit the communication process and progress at the science-policy interface. SDG indicators can be improved in a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) manner and by setting clear policy targets for each indicator, allowing for measuring distance-to-targets. This allows country-to-country comparison and learning, and accelerates the SDG implementation process. We propose 24 water-related indicators centered on SDG 6, with complementary indicators including quantitative policy targets. The approach is doable, easily scalable, and flexibly deployable by collecting information for the EU-28. Main gaps in the EU-28 are observed for water quality, wastewater treatment, nutrient, and energy recovery, as well as climate adaptation to extreme weather events (heat, droughts, and floods). The framework was less successful for non-OECD countries due to lack of data and EU-centric targets for each indicator. This needs further research.


ANNEX 1. INDICATORS OF THE NATIONAL BLUEPRINT FRAMEWORK (NBF)
First a general description is given, followed by a specific example of each of the 24 indicators of the NBF.

A. GENERAL DESCRIPTION
To be able to reach a final indicator value, two calculation steps have to be carried out. The first is to calculate the distance from the nation's current raw data value to the target value. This gives a value for the progression towards the target. Following this, the progression value is then converted to a value between 0-10 to give the final indicator value. The value of 10 indicates that the target has been reached ( Figure 1).

Figure 1. Flow diagram to show the steps taken to reach the final NBF indicator score from the original data value.
In these examples raw data values in percentages, with an end target of 100, where A donates the raw data value, progression is the percentage value, and to convert to a value between 0-10 it is divided by 10. In cases where the end target is 100% the calculation is shown below.
= If instead the target is 0%, the following calculation is carried out.

Raw data
Target value

Target progression calculation
Conversion to values between 0-10

Indicator value
For continuous values, or those in percentages where the target is a value other than 100, the values are multiplied by a conversion factor to result in a range between 0-10, where scoring 10 means that the target has been reached. In the following example A gives the national raw data value and B gives the target value. C is the conversion factor.

= *
If the indicator calculation included the progression towards a target value, a minimum-maximum calculation was used. With A being the minimum value and B being the target value and X being the country value.
Once the total number of indicators for a country had been collected, the geometric mean could be calculated to find the final index value of the NBF. The geometric mean is used in preference to the arithmetic mean as it reduces the impact of high or low scores. The addition of plus one to each indicator score means that indicators with a zero value do not result in an index score of zero. The approach is similar to the method developed by Koop and van Leeuwen (2015, a, b). Go to the TWAP website, select the legal framework indicators. Download the legal framework data and use the normalized basin country unit scores. For example in the Netherlands, the BCU score for the Scheldt is 0.86 and for the Rhine is 0. The average BCU score is taken.

Indicator 4: Tertiary Education Attainment
Principle: Attainment of education at a tertiary level yields highly educated professionals that are necessary in the creation or adoption of new technologies, fundamental for growth (Brunello et al., 2007)

Category 2. Water Quality
The following Water Quality indicators are included to monitor the chemical, ecological surface water status and the chemical status of groundwater. Water sources can suffer from point and non-point source pollution which can lead to a degradation of ecosystem services and biodiversity loss (Bakker et al., 2012).

Indicator 5: Surface water Quality
Principal: The chemical quality of the surface water used as a drinking water source. A high score donates high water quality. The goal for each country is to ensure that every water source achieves good status or higher.

Example:
The total surface water bodies in Spain (rivers and lakes only) that reached 'good' chemical status according to the wise water framework was 4225 out of 4716.
Where to get the data https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/proportion-of-classified-surface-water-5 last accessed 16th January 2019. Go to Surface Water Bodies (SWB) ecological status

Indicator 8: Drinking Water Quality
Principal: The quality of the water supply gives an indication of the capacity of the system for filtration and transport (Hoekstra et al., 2018).This is taken from the level of compliance with drinking water regulations, for EU countries this is the Drinking Water Directive. The goal is for the compliance value to be 100. Principal: This represents the percentage of the population that receives a piped drinking water supply rather than reliant on a local spring source or an alternative source. This shows the development of water infrastructure present (Hoekstra et al., 2018). A lower indicator score is given when the percentage is low. The goal is for 100% of the population to receive a piped source of drinking water. Where to get the data https://washdata.org/data

How to Calculate
Indicator 10: Percentage of the population connected to improved sanitation Principal: A measure of the percentage of the population covered by wastewater collection and treatment. Improved sanitation facilities mean that excreta has been separated away from human, this does not distinguish between separation techniques. Separation can include via a sewerage network, in-situ treatment and disposal as well as onsite storage with removal for treatment (JMP, 2017). A lower Indicator score is given where the percentage is lower. The goal is for 100% of the population to have improved sanitation.

How to Calculate
A = The percentage of the population connected to improved sanitation.
= Example: In Sweden, 92 % of the population is connected to improved sanitation, this gives an indicator value of 9.2.
Where to get the data https://washdata.org/data.
Use household data, go the world file. Use the most recent data (e.g. 2015). Safely managed sanitation at the national level.

Indicator 11: Water affordability
Principal: Within Europe, water is readily available, usually piped directly into the home. However, some individuals face financial difficulties in being able to afford this water. If water costs more than 3% of the individuals income, then they are said to be water poor (García-Valiñas et al., 2010). The goal is to ensure that whilst water is used sustainably, it remains affordable with the pricing below 4% of the average income.

How to calculate
A: average water bill per month B: average income per month 0.3 is the conversion value to give an indicator score between 0-10. Where to get the data Average monthly income (USD): https://www.worlddata.info/average-income.php last accessed 8 April 2019.

Category 4. Infrastructure
Indicator 12: Infrastructure investment Principal: Investment into infrastructure is required for the infrastructure to be properly maintained and for new technologies to be implemented. The goal for infrastructure investment is 3.8% of national GDP (Santarsiero et al., 2016).

11
How to Calculate: To calculate this, the most recent data on infrastructure investment is used. This is from 2010. The GDP of 2010 is then also used to measure the amount of investment relative to the GDP. In order to create a score from 0-10, this is then multiplied by a conversion factor of 263.
A= 2010 infrastructure investment

Example
For Poland, A = 722453066 and B= 360344273490, giving the infrastructure investment as 2% of GDP and an indicator score of 5.28.
Where to get the data Transport infrastructure investment and maintenance spending (OECD): https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ITF_INV-MTN_DATA Infrastructure investment is found in euros and converted to US$ using the average 2010 exchange rate.

Indicator 13: Water leakage
Principal: Leakages from the water network effects water use efficiency as well as water quality(EEA, 2001). Target 6.4 of the SDGs is to increase water-use efficiency, therefore the goal is for no water to be lost due to leakage.

How to Calculate
Leakage rates of 50% are taken to be the maximum value and would thus score 0.

= − *
Example: In Sweden, distribution losses account for 18% of water lost in the system.
Where to get the data Percent water lost per kilometer of network: https://www.danva.dk/media/3645/eureau_water_in_figures.pdf (EU) illustrated in Figure 19 of the report, shown in the graph below.

Indicator 14: Secondary Waste Water Treatment (WWT)
Principal: Measure of the population connected to secondary wastewater treatment plants. Primary treatment treats the physical water contamination, whereas secondary water treatment also treats the biological and organic contamination (de Moel et al., 2006). The goal is for all nations to have 100% Secondary WWT.

= +
Example: In Sweden the percentage of secondary WWT is 2.5%, the percentage of tertiary WWT is 92.9%. Therefore, the amount of waste that is treated to at least a secondary level is 95.4%.
Definition of secondary WWT: Definition secondary WWT: Secondary treatment: process generally involving biological treatment with a secondary settlement or other process, with a BOD removal of at least 70% and a COD removal of at least 75% (OECD, 2013).
Where to get the data https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/urban-waste-water-treatment/urban-waste-water-treatmentassessment-4 Click on the Table and data are shown for secondary and tertiary treatment

Indicator 15: Percentage of tertiary Waste Water Treatment
Principal: Measure of the population connected to tertiary wastewater treatment plants. Tertiary wastewater treatment is the final stage in the treatment process and removes inorganic compounds, carbonaceous matter and additional solids before the water is released into surface water. Reuse of water reduces required water extraction (Cirelli & Salgot, 2001). The goal is for all nations to have the highest level of wastewater treatment, 100% being tertiary treatment.

Example
As seen above, 92.9% of Sweden's water treatment is to a tertiary level.
Definition of tertiary: Tertiary treatment: treatment of nitrogen and/or phosphorous and/or any other pollutant affecting the quality or a specific use of water (microbiological pollution, color, etc.). (OECD, 2013) Where to get the data https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/urban-waste-water-treatment/urban-waste-water-treatmentassessment-4 Click on the To measure the full potential of nutrient and energy recovery from wastewater by using wastewater abstracted sewage sludge, secondary WWT is incorporated in the calculation and not primary WWT. In this way the concept of urban metabolism is better represented. Secondary WWT produces more sewage sludge than Primary WWT.
Example: German sewage sludge is used both for agriculture and in compost. This gives a value of 6.9 for indicator 16 for the Netherlands.
Where to find the data https://data.europa.eu/euodp/data/dataset/hzWkcfKt5mxEaFijeoA Go to visualize

How to calculate
This indicator represents the percentage of the total collected municipal waste that incinerated with energy recovery (techniques). However, when solid waste is recycled or composted, it is not possible to also use it for incineration with energy recovery, while both practices are sustainable. Therefore the % solid waste that is recycled or composted is subtracted from the total (100%) of collected municipal waste to obtain the potential percentage of solid waste that can be incinerated with energy recovery (in numerator). Thus this indicator is calculated as shown below. Where to get the data https://stats.oecd.org/ last accessed 9 th January 2019. Go to Environment and click on waste and then to municipal waste.  (Chen, 2015). The goal is to have a score of 1 in readiness.

How to calculate
The ND-GAIN score is given as a value between 0-100 for each country with high values showing more readiness to adapt to climate change impacts.

Example
Using Ireland as an example, the ND-GAIN readiness score is 0.640, giving an indicator score of 6.4.
Where to get the data https://gain-new.crc.nd.edu/ranking/readiness

Indicator 24: Integrated Water Resources Management Implementation
Principal: There are many synergies between water management and the development of sanitation, agriculture and energy, however water targets for these industries are lacking in their respective goals. Including an IWRM indicator shows the degree to which an integrated approach is being used (Ait-Kadi, 2016).The indicator measures the percentage of Integrated Water Resources Management(IWRM) in river basin management plans. The goal is for all basins to be managed using IWRM.

How to Calculate:
=

Example
Poland has 40% IWRM implementation, therefore the indicator value is 4.

ANNEX 2 RESULTS OF SOME OF THE INDICATOR SCORES FOR THE 28 EU MEMBER STATES
Annex 2 provides the scores for some of the key indicators provided in Table 1

ANNEX 3. SPIDER DIAGRAMS OF THE NBF FOR EACH OF THE 28 EU MEMBER STATES
The following section gives the 24 indicator scores for each country in a spider diagram.