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Apart from Greenland and the Faroe Islands, the Nordic countries are part of either the European Union (Åland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden) or the European Free Trade Association EFTA (Iceland and Norway) which are jointly a part of the European Economic Area (EEA). The EFTA countries have to implement all EU directives that are part of the EEA agreement. All the Nordic countries that are EU members have already implemented the new DWD to some extent, whereas the EFTA countries, Norway and Iceland, are still in the process of doing so (December 2025). Although not mandatory in Greenland and the Faroe Islands those countries have implemented many of the retirements in the DWD e.g. to facilitate access to market for seafood products.

Number of water supplies and population

The population in the region in 2017 was 27 million inhabitants, of whom 91% is served by 16,500 regulated water supplies (Fig.2). The remaining 9%, or 2.3 million people, are assumed to be served by an unknown number of unregulated water supplies, mostly serving single or few households. Registration of these is largely lacking.
While 3,300 large- and medium size water supplies (serving more than 500 people) provide water to 83% of the population, 13,200 small regulated water supplies (less than 500 people) are serving 8% of the population or 2.2 million people and 9% unregulated serving 2.3 million people in the Nordic region. This means that approximately four and a half million people in the Nordic countries have drinking water that is subject to limited or no monitoring and surveillance.
Small is defined as 50–500 and very small less than 50 people served, however systems with commercial or public activity are always to be regulated. Small supplies rely often on a single operator/technician, who is in charge of every aspect of the operation. Many of the small ­supplies also serve temporary populations, such as those summer cottagers and tourist destinations, with many more users.
Figure 2  Population and regulated water supplies in the Nordic countries (%) (9% of the population is served by an unknown number unregulated water supplies)
The large and medium-sized water supplies are usually publicly owned, either by the municipality or the government (e.g., in Greenland where all supplies are owned and operated by Nukissiorfiit, a utility owned by the Government), whereas the smaller supplies serving less than 500 people are typically user-owned and often run as a cooperative.

Drinking water harnessing

The Nordic countries have a relatively similar cultural background and legal system, whereas their geography and geology vary widely which is reflected to some extent by the different challenges they face in harnessing drinking water.
Water harnessing varies both between large and small supplies and between countries. Overall, the water harnessing at all regulated water supplies in the Nordic region is 59% from groundwater and 41% from surface water . Some countries use almost exclusively groundwater as a source for all supplies such as Denmark and Iceland; or almost exclusively surface water such as the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Whereas in the other countries the small supplies rely heavily on groundwater as a source and the large ones are using mainly surface water (Fig.3). Groundwater is considered safer than surface water because it is somewhat protected against microbiological contamination by the soil and strata above whereas surface water is more open to contamination and needs greater treatment.
Figure 3 Water harnessing by the regulated water supplies in the Nordic countries

Non-compliance incidents

In the 53 interviews we asked about incidents of contamination and how non-compliance was recognized. The two most reported  route of detection was routine surveillance (sampling and inspection) by the authorities and water supply staff suspecting contamination e.g. due to extreme weather events such as heavy rain or prolonged drought, identification of changes when reviewing analytical reports, or on-line monitoring as in the case of two supplies interviewed in the Faroe Islands; user complaints (mostly related to change in colour); and suspected and sometimes confirmed waterborne illness (Fig. 4A)-
The most frequently mentioned causes for contamination incidents were surface water intrusion into groundwater sources, and system failures (Fig. 4B). Less frequently reported causes of non-compliance were chemical contamination, accidents such as contractors digging into pipelines, intensive farming and algal blooms. Incidents often can either be traced to surface water intrusion into groundwater during extreme weather events and consequential use of a reserve water source, or to treatment failures. This is in line with a past survey of small water supplies in Iceland where lack of maintenance or bad design of water supply intake was the most common cause of non-compliance in small supplies, waterborne outbreaks and boil advisory .
Figure 4 Non-compliance incidents: A) How contamination incidents were recognized (%) and B) What were the causes of these incidents given by the interviewees (%).
Nordic Council of Ministers I www.norden.org/publications I pub@norden.org