Support for the Implementation of the Water Framework Directive

Project

Duration

Feb 2006 - Feb 2007

The implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) poses enormous challenges to the Member States as well as to the European Commission. As part of a pan-European consortium, Ecologic supports the European Commission in the implementation of the Directive. The main objective is to provide independent, impartial and punctual advice on scientific, socio-economic and technical issues related to the WFD.

The WFD entered into force in December 2002. For the implementation of the Directive to be successful and effective, a common understanding and approach across political borders are crucial. In order to address the challenges in a co-operative and co-ordinated way, a Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) was put into place in 2001. Under the CIS, an institutional set-up was established, including a co-ordination group, various working groups, strategic steering groups etc. This requires a continuous support by the CIS members (European Commission, EU Member States, Norway).

The WFD sets strict deadlines for implementation. As of April 2006, Member States (MS) should have legally transposed the Directive into their national legislation (Art. 24), identified the river basin districts (RBD) and competent authorities (Art. 3), and carried out a characterisation of the river basin districts (Art 5) including an analysis of pressures and impacts and an economic analysis. Within the next years, MS will have to set up monitoring programmes (by 2006) and develop river basin management plans, including programmes of measures (draft by 2009).

Against this background, the European Commission, DG Environment asks for support in various tasks aimed at developing a common approach across the EU to the various challenges for implementing the WFD within the framework of the CIS. Ecologic is part of the consortium of 19 institutions, led by WRc, which was commissioned with this task. The main objective is to provide independent, impartial and punctual advice on scientific, socio-economic and technical issues related to the WFD, including monitoring and reporting requirements (Water Information System for - WISE), heavily modified water bodies (HMWB), agriculture and WFD, and floods. Ecologic’s support includes various issues with regard to the WFD implementation, such as linkages between WFD and agriculture, heavily modified water bodies (HMWB), public participation in river basin management, and socio-economic aspects.

Funding European Commission, Directorate-General Environment (DG Environment), International

Partner

Water Research Centre (WRc), United Kingdom Aarhus University, National Enviromental Research Institute (NERI), Denmark Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Norway Federal Environment Agency (UBA), Milieu, Belgium Vituki, Hungary Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Greece Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Finland Environmental Institute (EI), Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), International Stichting Waterloopkunding Laboratorium, WLDelft Hydraulics, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (Fraunhofer IME), Germany Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI (Fraunhofer ISI), Germany Ecolas, Belgium Institut national de l’environnement industriel et des risques (INERIS), France National Institute of Biology (NIB), Slovenia Kiwa, Netherlands Office (Kiwa), Netherlands Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS-SGGW ), Poland Ecologic Institute, Germany

Team

Thomas Dworak Nadine Herbke Benjamin Görlach Dr. Eleftheria Kampa Dr. Rainer Müssner

Duration

Feb 2006 - Feb 2007

Project ID

1760

Keywords

Agriculture Framework Contract, Common Implementation Strategy, CIS, water qualiy, reporting, monitoring, Water Information System, WISE Europe

Source URL: https://www.ecologic.eu/1859