The need to protect groundwater in a concerted way at European Union (EU) level has been highlighted for more than two decades. For a long time, groundwater protection regimes and associated policies have suffered from a lack of overall planning and speci; c instruments which could ensure concerted actions across the EU. Early groundwater legislation (Directive 80/68/EEC) rather narrowly focused on control of emissions of substances from industrial and urban sources, while provisions for control of diffuse sources came later in the legislative picture with the agriculture- and industrial emissions-related directives, and in particular with the Nitrates (96/676/EC) and IPPC (61/96/EC) Directives.