Water Safety Plans -The case of Portugal

Water supply is a structural and irreplaceable service, essential to promote public health, to pursue economic activities, and crucial for environmental conservation, reflecting the population’s quality of life and the status of sustainable development. In this context, it is imperative to assure the continuous improvement of all processes and practices conducive to guarantee water quality. Water Safety Plans (WSP) are an important public policy tool to accomplish these goals. This manuscript reviews the international evidence of the adoption and implementation of WSP and reports the current situation in Jordan, as part of the necessary adjustment of the national legal framework to the publication of the Directive (EU) 2015/1787, October 6th, on water quality for human consumption. The aim is to draw lessons from several successful WSP experiments around the world and extract lessons from these cases when drafting new legislation in Portugal and elsewhere. Findings suggest there are four critical components in developing and implementing WSP: commitment, technical knowledge, governance, and interagency collaboration. © 2018. JASET, International Scholars and Researchers Association