The Transition of EU Water Policy Towards the Water Framework Directive’s Integrated River Basin Management Paradigm

Abstract

Introduced in 2000 to reform and rationalise water policy and management across the European Union (EU) Member States (MS), the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the EU’s flagship legislation on water protection, is widely acknowledged as the embodiment and vessel for the application of the Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) paradigm. Its ecological objectives, perhaps even more challenging than the prospect of statutory catchment planning itself, were for all EU waters to achieve ‘good status’ by 2015 (except where exemptions applied) and the prevention of any further deterioration. In support of the upcoming WFD review in 2019, the paper reviews the transition of EU policies that led to the adoption of the WFD, to identify the reasons why the Directive was introduced and what it is trying to deliver, and to place progress with its implementation into context. It further investigates reasons that might have limited the effectiveness of the Directive and contributed to the limited delivery and delays in water quality improvements. Findings reveal that different interpretations on the Directive’s objectives and exemptions left unresolved since its negotiation, ambiguity and compromises observed by its Common Implementation Strategy and lack of real support for the policy shift required have all been barriers to the harmonised transposition of the IRBM paradigm, the key to delivering good ecological status. The 2019 WFD review offers a unique opportunity to realign the implementation of the Directive to its initial aspirations and goals.

Water Quality and Hydromorphological Variability in Greek Rivers: A Nationwide Assessment with Implications for Management

“…Across EU Member States discussions are on-going as to how to integrate climate change into the process of RBMPs for the next management cycles (2015-2027) of the WFD [1]. A key challenge in this context is the adaptation to climate change impacts through the design and implementation of PoMs at the river basin scale [5][6][7].Since the second WFD implementation cycle had ended in 2015 [8,9], several problems concerning the implementation of the WFD have been recorded and summed up in the reports of all EU27 Member States (MSs). Those problems mainly concern the failure of some MSs to comply with certain WFD Articles, the deficient validation of surface waters' typology, undeveloped financial analysis, little progress in transparent pricing policies implementation, generalized measures proposed in the RBMPs, and the absence of a schedule for the measures implementation.…”

“…Furthermore, the most important issue in the WFD implementation among EU Northern and Southern countries was the water quality problems in contrast to water quantity problems that the latter usually face. Another striking difference in the WFD implementation among MSs concerns the effectiveness in the utilization of water resources management tools, as certain MSs have greater experience than others [8][9][10].At the national level, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters (IMBRIW) of Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) has been assigned by the Special Water Secretariat, which belongs to the Greek Ministry of the Environment, Energy, and Climate Change to implement the WFD in Greek rivers. Reference conditions were defined for each Intercalibration Type (ICT) of rivers according to the available information for the Biological Quality Elements (BQEs), the physicochemical and hydromorphological conditions.…”

“…These four elements are the benthic invertebrates, benthic diatoms, fish, and aquatic macrophytes. During the First Cycle of Management, all RBMPs had identifed the significant pressures from point sources, diffuse sources, water abstraction sources, groundwater abstractions, flow regulation and morphological alterations, saline intrusion, artificial recharge, land cover and population density, and other pressures [8,9]. Since then, numerous research approaches [11][12][13][14][15] have tried to promote the River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) of the WFD implementation process by developing methods for the monitoring and assessment of rivers' ecological status, by taking into account objective indicators demonstrative for hydromorphological, water physicochemical, and biological elements [16,17].…”

“…Since the second WFD implementation cycle had ended in 2015 [8,9], several problems concerning the implementation of the WFD have been recorded and summed up in the reports of all EU27 Member States (MSs). Those problems mainly concern the failure of some MSs to comply with certain WFD Articles, the deficient validation of surface waters' typology, undeveloped financial analysis, little progress in transparent pricing policies implementation, generalized measures proposed in the RBMPs, and the absence of a schedule for the measures implementation.…”

“…Furthermore, the most important issue in the WFD implementation among EU Northern and Southern countries was the water quality problems in contrast to water quantity problems that the latter usually face. Another striking difference in the WFD implementation among MSs concerns the effectiveness in the utilization of water resources management tools, as certain MSs have greater experience than others [8][9][10].…”