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: (1) 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. (2) 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. (3) 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. (4) 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. (5) 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). (6) 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.

Enhancing domestic water conservation behaviour: A review of empirical studies on influencing tactics.

The world faces imminent drought-related challenges that, from a tap-water supply perspective, require increasingly expensive infrastructure enhancement and energy expansion to maintain sufficient service levels. This paper argues that enhancing domestic water conservation provides a promising alternative or necessary addition to reduce costs and to stimulate pro-environmental behaviour. Although the number of field experiments on how people's behaviour can be changed with respect to their daily water consumption is growing, to date, most studies in this field have focussed either on explanatory socio-economic factors (e.g. water pricing, income, or family composition) or behavioural intentions and personal characteristics related to behavioural change. Accordingly, there is limited empirically validated knowledge about the use and effectiveness of different influencing tactics to change behaviour. This paper provides a review of the empirically oriented literature in this field and aims to provide an up-to-date assessment that identifies eight different Behavioural Influencing Tactics (BITs) that target long-term water conservation behaviour within households. Our analysis is structured around three information processing routes: the reflective route, the semi-reflective route, and the automatic route. We conclude that the current body of literature is promising and provides a useful body of evidence on the range and effectiveness of individual water conservation mechanisms, but that needs further development to deepen our understanding of how to effectively prolong and reinforce newly formed water conservation routines.