We spoke with the European federation representing national drinking water and wastewater service providers, and a leading voice in strengthening the resilience and security of Europe’s critical water infrastructure.
As Europe continues to strengthen its approach to critical infrastructure resilience, the water sector remains one of the most essential, and increasingly pressured, components of societal and economic stability.
Serving more than 550 million citizens across Europe, drinking water and wastewater services underpin public health, industrial activity, and community resilience. Yet the sector faces mounting challenges, from ageing infrastructure and climate pressures to cybersecurity threats, energy dependency, and growing regulatory expectations.
To explore these issues, Ben Lane spoke with Martin Silič, Policy Advisor at EurEau.
Q: Water services are often described as essential infrastructure, but why should the water sector be seen as a strategic priority within Europe’s wider critical infrastructure protection and resilience framework?
Martin Silič:
The European water services sector serves more than 550 million citizens, so its importance to societal stability cannot be overstated.
Drinking water and wastewater services are fundamental to maintaining vital societal functions. Historically, the development of water and sanitation systems played a transformative role in eliminating major public health threats, and that remains just as true today.
Beyond public health, water is also a critical enabler of economic activity. Almost every industrial sector depends on reliable water services in some form.
At the same time, the sector is facing significant pressures. We are dealing with ageing infrastructure, stricter water quality requirements, climate-driven droughts and floods, pollution challenges, cybersecurity threats, physical security concerns, and increasing expectations around energy resilience and neutrality.
Taken together, these pressures make water not simply an operational utility issue, but a strategic resilience priority for Europe.
Q: Recent EU initiatives such as the CER Directive and NIS2 are reshaping expectations around resilience and security. What impact are these regulations having on water utilities?
Martin Silič:
The impact varies significantly because water utilities differ greatly in size, capability, risk exposure, and operational complexity.
In general, these regulatory developments have strengthened expectations around security, including physical protection, cybersecurity, staff training, and even background screening in some contexts.
They have also encouraged closer coordination between operators and public authorities responsible for emergency planning and crisis response, which is a positive development.
However, implementation remains challenging for many operators.
Smaller or resource-constrained utilities often face limited staffing capacity, financial pressures, and the need to develop entirely new competencies in areas such as cybersecurity, infrastructure protection, and advanced risk analysis.
That means regulatory ambition must be matched by practical support. Expertise, funding, and implementation guidance are essential if the sector is expected to meet these new obligations effectively.
Q: As water infrastructure becomes increasingly digitalised, how concerned should operators be about cybersecurity?
Martin Silič:
Cybersecurity is one of the defining resilience challenges for the coming decade.
As water systems become more digitalised, the attack surface inevitably expands. Many operational systems were never originally designed with modern cybersecurity requirements in mind, so significant upgrades are required.
The sector must move from reactive thinking towards proactive, risk-based resilience.
That includes continuous monitoring, testing, incident preparedness, crisis simulation, and stronger governance around digital risk.
Supply chain security is also critically important. Water operators increasingly depend on technology vendors, software providers, and external service partners, so trust and resilience must extend beyond the utility itself.
We also need reliable support from Member State authorities. Operators should not be left isolated or forced to depend on uncertain or unproven support structures when dealing with sophisticated cyber threats.
Q: Water infrastructure does not operate in isolation. How significant are the interdependencies between water, energy, and communications infrastructure?
Martin Silič:
These interdependencies are extremely significant.
Water services are heavily dependent on other essential sectors, particularly energy. Pumping, treatment, monitoring, distribution—all of these require reliable power.
Equally, other sectors depend on water.
This interconnectedness means that resilience cannot be addressed in silos.
Energy security has been a longstanding priority for EurEau because disruptions in the energy sector can have immediate consequences for water service continuity.
Operators therefore need to improve operational autonomy wherever possible.
That could include energy contingency planning, improved efficiency, decentralised systems, and self-generated energy capabilities.
Decentralised and flexible systems can often be less vulnerable to cascading failures, which makes them increasingly attractive from a resilience perspective.
Q: Collaboration is clearly essential in resilience planning. How does EurEau help facilitate cooperation across Europe’s water sector?
Martin Silič:
Collaboration is central to EurEau’s role.
We organise our work through three lead committees covering drinking water, wastewater, and economic and legal affairs, while security and resilience issues are coordinated horizontally across the organisation.
One important mechanism is our active Working Group on Resilience & Security.
Through this structure, we coordinate expert meetings, shared projects, knowledge exchange, and wider resilience discussions—including engagement with counterparts in regions currently affected by armed conflict.
That exchange of practical experience is extremely valuable.
Resilience is not something any operator can build in isolation. Stronger cooperation helps spread best practice, improve preparedness, and create a stronger European resilience culture.
Q: Climate change is placing growing pressure on infrastructure systems. How is this reshaping resilience planning for water services?
Martin Silič:
Climate change is fundamentally changing the operating environment for water services.
We are seeing more frequent extreme weather events, heavier rainfall, flooding, drought conditions, water scarcity, and increasing pollution pressures.
These challenges directly affect infrastructure performance, water quality, and long-term resource availability.
The adaptation response requires several urgent actions.
Firstly, significantly greater infrastructure investment. The European Commission estimates an annual investment gap of approximately €23 billion simply to meet compliance requirements under existing water legislation.
Secondly, stronger action to reduce pollution at source.
Thirdly, wider uptake of water reuse and more efficient water resource management.
But efficiency should not become an objective in isolation—it should be part of a broader strategy to reduce pressure on increasingly stressed water resources.
If these issues are not addressed effectively, rising service costs and reduced resilience become very real risks.
Q: Finally, what message would you most like to share with Europe’s critical infrastructure protection community?
Martin Silič:
The most important message is that resilience must become proactive, risk-based, and collaborative.
Reactive thinking is no longer sufficient.
Safeguarding essential services requires trusted partnerships, stronger awareness, better funding, improved skills development, and closer engagement between operators, policymakers, and stakeholders.
Crucially, interdependencies between critical sectors must be properly recognised in both policy and regulation.
Water resilience cannot be considered separately from energy resilience, digital resilience, or wider strategic autonomy.
If Europe wants genuinely resilient essential services, water must remain firmly at the centre of the conversation.