Towards a Good Ecological Status? The Prospects for the Third Implementation Cycle of the EU Water Framework Directive in The Netherlands

Abstract

The aim of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) is to achieve a “good” chemical and ecological status for all waters by 2027. Currently, the Netherlands and other EU Member States are finalizing their plans for the third iteration of the WFD management cycle. In this paper, we conducted an ex ante evaluation of these plans by assessing the perceptions of regional water authorities on goal attainment and the factors that account for it. In order to gain these insights, we first reviewed literature and developed a framework of factors that stimulate or hamper the implementation of the WFD. More detailed insights into the relevance and characteristics of these factors were found by applying the framework in two in-depth case studies. A more generalizable pattern was found by translating the case study results into a survey among the regional water authorities. We found that the majority of the participating water authorities expect that 50% (or more) of their WFD objectives will be achieved in 2027. However, hampering factors such as a lack of political will or the impossibility to address key causes of the problems that were identified during earlier management cycles are still present. Since it is doubtful whether they can be addressed by regional water authorities, we conclude that it will be unlikely that ecological ambitions will be met by 2027.

Moving Forward to Achieve the Ambitions of the European Water Framework Directive: Lessons Learned from the Netherlands

“…An ambivalent formulation has been chosen for the formulation of WFD objectives, which leaves room for different interpretations (Santbergen, 2013). Uncertainties among regional authorities about the consequences of choices play an important role in this (Dieperink et al, 2012;Van Kats et al, 2022). This also applies at the national level (Behagel and Arts, 2014) (see also Section 4.5).…”

Synergistic Use of Earth Observation Driven Techniques to Support the Implementation of Water Framework Directive in Europe: A Review

“…However, the fundamental cause of this issue is the inclusion of QEs with a high level of uncertainty in the assessment [10]. Furthermore, Kats et al (2022) [27], through an online survey with the participation of two water regional authorities from Netherlands, showed that 63% agree and 32% strongly agree that the OOAO principle does not provide an accurate picture of the water quality within their water authorities.…”

Slowing Down Quick Runoff—A New Approach for the Delineation and Assessment of Critical Points, Contributing Areas, and Proposals of Measures to Reduce Non-Point Water Pollution from Agricultural Land

“…Although water conservation practices conducted in the Czech Republic are regulated at four different specific levels of protection [20][21][22][23], adhering to the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) 2000/60/ES [24], problems with water quality arising from non-point source water pollution are increasing, to date [3,16,17,25]. The WFD requires that the "good ecological and chemical status" of water bodies be achieved in all EU countries with respect to the cost-benefit standards of individually applied measures [25,26].…”

“…Due to the limited budgets available for watershed management projects, effective, critical, catchment-site prioritization methods, and techniques for the placement of measures are required to achieve the maximal reduction in elevated runoff/pollutants with minimal costs [5,7,26]. Several approaches expressed in the literature address the prioritization of risky catchment sites for the adoption of various mitigation measures (mainly called nature-based solutions (NBSs), natural water retention measures (NWRMs), and natural infrastructures (NI)) according to the scale, available data, and the details of their design.…”