Environment of Belgium

The environment of Belgium is generally affected by the high population density in most of the country. However, due to consistent efforts by the various levels of government in Belgium, the state of the environment in Belgium is gradually improving. This led to Belgium being ranked as one of the top 10 countries (9 out of 132) in terms of environmental protection trends, and to Belgium being ranked in 2012 as the 24th country out of 132 for environmental protection. However, water quality still suffers from a relatively low, yet increasing percentage of sewage waste-water treatment, and from historical pollution accumulated in sediments. Air quality is generally good to average, but is affected by emissions from traffic and house heating, and industrial air pollution blowing over from the neighbouring heavily industrialised Ruhr-area in Germany. Biodiversity is lower in Flanders than in Wallonia because of population density and fragmentation of habitats, but efforts are being made to boost bio-diversity through connecting fragmented forests and national parks through wildlife crossing "ecoducts" such as in Kikbeek.

Belgium moreover has one of Europe's highest waste recycling rates. In particular, the Flemish region of Belgium has the highest waste diversion rate in Europe. Almost 75% of the residential waste produced there is reused, recycled, or composted.

Since the 1993 State Reform, the environment is a regional responsibility, with the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels-Capital Regions responsible for environmental matters in their respective territories. This has led to differences in legislation and separation of measurements and publication of statistics.

In Flanders, emission of non-methane-VOC has decreased from 200 kton in 1990 to around 100 kton in 2006, because of lower emissions from transport and industry. These two however remain the most important VOC polluters.

Particulate matter emissions and environmental concentrations have decreased since 1995, but little improvement is visible since 2000. European Union targets for average daily PM10 concentrations in 2005 have not been met and a significant increase was seen in 2006 compared to 2005. The problem is mostly situated in cities and industrial areas.

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