EU Water Directives Through a Semiotic Lens: Framing Quality, Risk, and Circularity

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro^*

• Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), Gothenburg, Sweden

EU water governance relies on structured regulatory discourse to define water quality, risk, and circularity, shaping policy implementation, compliance mechanisms, and sustainability transitions. This study employs Greimassian semiotics, Social Semiotics, and Ecosemiotics to analyze how EU water directives construct governance meanings through legal categorization, stakeholder positioning, and ecological representations. By systematically examining regulatory thresholds, spatialized hazard mapping, and circular economy framings, the study reveals how legal clarity reinforces governance consistency while also constraining adaptive environmental management. Findings indicate that quality is framed through rigid compliance metrics, risk is defined via spatial delineations of responsibility, and circularity is positioned as an industrial efficiency paradigm rather than an ecological process. While these framings ensure enforceability, they may limit flexible, ecosystem-based governance approaches. This research underscores the role of semiotic structures in environmental regulation and suggests that integrating semiotic flexibility into policy design could enhance governance adaptability, particularly in the face of climate variability and transboundary water challenges. By advancing a triadic semiotic approach to legal and environmental discourse, this study contributes to both semiotic research and EU regulatory studies, offering new insights into how governance language mediates sustainability outcomes. meanings around what constitutes acceptable water quality, sustainable management, and environmental risk (Leipold et al. 2019;Hajer and Versteeg 2005;Dryzek 2005). For example, the Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) (European Parliament & Council of the European Union 2000) institutionalizes the notion of "Good Ecological Status" (GES), yet the parameters for achieving GES remain technocratic and politically contested (Evers, 2018). Similarly, the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) (Council of the European Communities. 1991) transforms environmental degradation into quantifiable legal thresholds, converting dynamic ecological processes into static regulatory classifications. These examples illustrate the significant role semiotic choices play in policy documents, as they frame policy implementationby reinforcing specific regulatory interpretations of water quality, risk, and sustainability.