UNIVERSITEIT GENT
FACULTEIT ECONOMIE EN BEDRIJFSKUNDE
ACADEMIEJAAR 2008 – 2009
ANALYSIS OF FUNCTION -RELATED BOTTLENECKS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN WATER MANAGEMENT PLANS OF THE ZWALM RIVER BASIN
Masterproef voorgedragen tot het bekomen van de graad van
Master in de Toegepaste Economische Wetenschappen: Handelsingenieur
Ilse Vanhulle
onder leiding van
Prof. P. Goethals
UNIVERSITEIT GENT
FACULTEIT ECONOMIE EN BEDRIJFSKUNDE
ACADEMIEJAAR 2008 – 2009
ANALYSIS OF FUNCTION -RELATED BOTTLENECKS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN WATER MANAGEMENT PLANS OF THE ZWALM RIVER BASIN
Masterproef voorgedragen tot het bekomen van de graad van
Master in de Toegepaste Economische Wetenschappen: Handelsingenieur
Ilse Vanhulle
onder leiding van
Prof. P. Goethals
PERMISSION
Ondergetekende verklaart dat de inhoud van deze masterproef mag geraadpleegd en/of gereproduceerd worden, mits bronvermelding.
Undersigned declares the content of this master thesis to be consultable and/or reproducible, subject to acknowledgement.
Ilse Vanhulle
WOORD VOORAF
Na het voltooien van deze masterproef zijn er enkele mensen die ik zeker van harte wil bedanken.
Eerst en vooral is er mijn promotor, dhr. Peter Goethals, voor de informatie die hij mij heeft aangereikt en de tijd die hij voor mij heeft vrijgemaakt.
Ook mijn ouders en Niklaas die mij in alle jaren van mijn studie gesteund hebben op vele vlakken mogen zeker niet vergeten worden. Ze hebben altijd in mij geloofd en ik hoop dat ze trots zijn. In het bijzonder was Niklaas steeds de perfecte persoon om me te doen blijven geloven in mezelf en was hij ook van onschatbare waarde bij het ontwikkelen van een Java- programma, dat erg van pas kwam bij het tweede deel van deze masterproef.
Ook de vaste waarde in thesis- en bibliotheektijden, het ‘studiegroepje’ moet zeker even vermeld worden. Alle uren en weken die we samen doorbrachten hebben zonder meer betekenisvol bijgedragen tot het voltooien van dit werk. Een mooie afsluiter van de studententijd, bedankt Carmen, Jasper en Karen!
Tot slot moet ik zeker ook nog enkele mensen bedanken die mij broodnodige gegevens en tips aangebracht hebben: Dhr. Ans Mouton voor de Zwalmdatabase, Dhr. Diederik Malfroid voor het verduidelijken van het Zwalm-deelbekkenbeleid en Dhr. Erwin Meijers voor alle hulp met betrekking tot de KRW-Verkenner.
I
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INLEIDING 1
INTRODUCTION 2
1. BACKGROUND 3
1.1 The history of our contemporary integrated and holistic approach of water management 3
1.2 The legal framework for an integrated water policy 6 1.2.1 European guideline: The European Water Framework Directive 6 1.2.2 Flemish implementation 9 1.2.2.1 The first step: analyse and evaluate the current situation 12 1.2.2.2 The second step: a method to monitor and control the implementation 12 1.2.2.3 The last step: the actual water policy: river basin planning and measure programmes 12 1.2.3 The Flemish partial basin level and the Zwalm partial river basin 13
1.3 Decision Support Systems and modelling 16 1.3.1 Water management modelling 16 1.3.2 Decision Support Systems and the Water Framework Directive 17 1.3.3 Quality assurance of modelling 19 1.3.3.1 The Harmoni-CA project 20 1.3.3.2 The HarmoniQuA project (
1.4 The WFD-Explorer 25 1.4.1 The need for a tool 25 1.4.1.1 Perform activities required by the Water Framework Directive 25 1.4.1.2 Open up ecological knowledge 26 1.4.1.3 Communicating 26 1.4.1.4 Harmonize ecological goal setting 27 1.4.2 Origin of the tool 28 1.4.3 The method used by the tool 29
II
2. IDENTIFICATION OF CRUCIAL PROBLEMS AND RELATED GOALS IN THE ZWALM CATCHMENT 32
2.1 Related documents 32 2.1.1 Link with WFD and river basin management plans 32 2.1.2 The DuLo Water Plan 33
2.2 Opportunities and bottlenecks 34 2.2.1 Flemish approach: the seven tracks 34 2.2.1.1 Maximum retention of precipitation at the source 34 2.2.1.2 Wastewater treatment 34 2.2.1.3 Guard and improve the quality of sewage and treatment infrastructure 35 2.2.1.4 Prevention and restriction of diffuse pollution 35 2.2.1.5 Prevention and restriction of erosion and sediment transportation to the watercourse 35 2.2.1.6 Quantitative, qualitative and ecological sustainable watercourse management 35 2.2.1.7 Sustainable (drinking) water use 35 2.2.2 The Zwalm river basin opportunities and bottlenecks 36
2.3 Goal note 37 2.3.1 Flemish approach 37 2.3.2 The Zwalm river basin goal note (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 C) 37 2.3.2.1 Track 2: Sanitization of polluted water 38 2.3.2.2 Track 5: Prevention and restriction of erosion and sediment transportation to the watercourse 38 2.3.2.3 Track 6: (Quantitative, qualitative and) ecologically sustainable water management 40 2.3.2.4 Track 7: Sustainable (drinking) water use 41
3 THEORETICAL GOAL SETTING 42
3.1 Pre-WFD legislation 42
3.2 The Water Framework Directive objectives 45 3.2.1 Legal text 45 3.2.2 Goal setting and the related EQR classes per water type 47 3.2.2.1 Natural waters 48 3.2.2.2 Heavily modified waters 49
III
3.2.3 Common implementation strategy and the intercalibration exercise 50
3.3 Final goal for the Zwalm river basin per water type 52 3.3.1 Natural waters 52 3.3.2 Heavily modified waters 54 3.3.2.1 Different stakeholders in the Zwalm river basin 54 3.3.2.2 The heavily modified areas and their tailored goal 55
4 ACTIONS AND RESTORATION PLANS 57
4.1 What is a successful restoration? 57
4.2 General factors that influence the action-taking process 59 4.2.1 The natural water course 59 4.2.2 Economical aspects 59 4.2.3 Uncertainty 60
4.3 Action plan for the Zwalm river basin 61 4.3.1 Instruments and provisions 61 4.3.2 Sensitization, coordination and collaboration 61 4.3.3 Actions 62
5 WFD-EXPLORER IMPLEMENTATION 64 5.1.1 Macrofauna 64 5.1.2 Fish 65 5.1.3 Final Ecological Quality Ratio calculation 68
5.2 Selection of measures and first exploration of possible measure-sensitive areas 69 5.2.1 Manure policy 69 5.2.1.1 Possible target areas and original strategy 69 5.2.1.2 Practical objections and solution 70 5.2.1.3 Theoretical objection and solution 70 5.2.1.4 Conclusion 71 5.2.2 Infrastructure - Ecological embankments 72 5.2.3 Infrastructure - Brook reconstruction / meandering 72 5.2.4 Infrastructure - Dredging 73 5.2.4.1 Possible target areas 73 5.2.4.2 Pre-testing the effects of dredging – WFD-Explorer consequences 74 5.2.4.3 Dredging in practice 74 5.2.5 Sources - Increase WWTP efficiency 75
IV
5.2.5.1 Functioning of the measure 75 5.2.5.2 Current WWTP’s, their efficiencies and the related practical implications 75 5.2.6 Sources - Cleaning up point sources 75 5.2.7 Ecological management - Fish population management 76
5.3 Point of departure 77 5.3.1 Ecological Quality Ratio 77 5.3.2 Limiting factors 78 5.3.2.1 Macrofauna as limiting factor 79 5.3.2.2 Fish as limiting factor 79
5.4 Software implementation test 82 5.4.1 Approach 82 5.4.2 Phase 1 - Action round 1 83 5.4.2.1 Inputs for manure policy 83 5.4.2.2 Inputs for ecological embankments 84 5.4.2.3 Inputs for brook reconstruction/remeandering 84 5.4.2.4 Results of phase 1 86 5.4.3 Phase 1 - Action round 2 87 5.4.3.1 Inputs for cleaning up point sources 88 5.4.3.2 Results of round 2 89 5.4.4 Phase 1 - Action round 3 90 5.4.4.1 Results of round 3 91 5.4.5 Phase 2 92 5.4.5.1 Dredging in Zwalm_8 92 5.4.5.2 Fish population management 92 5.4.5.3 Results of phase 2 94 5.4.6 Final conclusion 95
6 A USER-EVALUATION OF THE WFD-EXPLORER: THE DIFFERENT IMPLEMENTATION STAGES AND RELATED EXPERIENCES 96
6.1 Definition phase 96 6.1.1 Installation 96 6.1.2 Data collection 97 6.1.3 Level of detail 97 6.1.3.1 Spatial detail level 97 6.1.3.2 Periodical detail level 98 6.1.3.3 Conclusion 98
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6.1.4 Selection of measures 99
6.2 Construction phase 99 6.2.1 The five steps and the related key elements in the WFD-Explorer schematization 99 6.2.2 The databases 100
6.3 Acceptance phase 101 6.3.1 Validation by measurements 101 6.3.2 Validation by experts 102
6.4 Application phase 102
6.5 General remarks 103 6.5.1 Helpdesk 103 6.5.2 Implementation run time 103 6.5.3 Updates 104
6.6 Conclusion 105
CONCLUSION 107 LITERATURE LIST XII
ANNEX 1 ANNEX 1-1
I. The first round of water legislation (1975-1980) Annex 1-1 A. The Drinking Water Directive Annex 1-1 B. The Freshwater Fish Directive Annex 1-2 C. Dangerous Substances Directive Annex 1-2
II. The second round of Directives: 1990-1996 Annex 1-3 A. Nitrate Directive Annex 1-4 B. Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive Annex 1-5 C. Habitats and Birds Directive, Natura 2000 Annex 1-5
III. The third round of directives Annex 1-8
VI
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BBI Belgian Biotic Index BOD Biological Oxygen Demand CIS Common Implementation Strategy CIW Coördinatiecommissie Integraal Waterbeleid – Coordination Commission of Integrated Water Policy DPSIR Driving forces, Pressure, State, Impacts, Response DSS Decision Support System DuLo plans Duurzame Lokale waterplannen - Sustainable Local water plans EAA European Environment Agency EQR Ecological Quality Ratio GEP Good Ecological Potential GES Good Ecological State Harmoni-CA Harmonized Modelling Tools for Integrated Basin Management HarmoniQuA Harmonizing Quality Assurance in model based catchments and river basin management IWRM Integrated Water Resources Management IWWTP Individual Waste Water Treatment Plant KB Knowledge Base MEP Maximum Ecological Potential MINA Milieu- en Natuurraad – Environment and Nature commission MIRA Milieu Rapport Vlaanderen – Environment Report Flanders MMIF Multimetric Macroinvertebrate Index Flanders MoST Modelling Support Tool RBMP River Basin Management Planning SSWWTP Small Scale Waste Water Treatment Plant UWWTP Urban Waste Water Treatment Plant VIWC Vlaams Integraal Wateroverleg Comité – Flemish Integraal Water management Committee VMM Vlaamse Milieu Maatschappij – Flemish Environmental Agency WFD Water Framework Directive WWTP Waste Water Treatment Plant
VII
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Water Framework Directive timetable for implementation (
Table 2: Intercalibrated water body types and their characteristics for Belgium (Flanders). (Adapted from EC, 2008). 53
Table 3: Intercalibrated EQR norms for Belgium (Flanders). (Adapted from EC, 2008). 53
Table 4: Knowledge rules for the EQR-calculation (Macrofauna – R6) (Van der Most et al., 2006). 65
Table 5: The water bodies (and number), the Fish score, the Macrofauna score and the resulting limiting factor (F= Fish, MF = Macrofauna). 78
Table 6: The Water bodies that are limited by their Macrofauna score, their partial EQRs
(respectively EQR max,s , EQR max,v , EQR max,P and EQR max,BOD ) and their resulting partial limiting factor (initial situation). 79
Table 7: The Water bodies that are limited by their Fish score and their composing (limiting) elements. 81
Table 8: Overview of the historical and targeted phosphorus surplus rates (Mira, 2006). 84
Table 9: The different sinuosity classes and their upper/lower bounds. 85
Table 10: EQR, Macrofauna and Fish score (both absolute and relative to the initial situation) after having implemented ecological embankment (Zwalm_4 and Zwalm_5) and brook reconstruction/remeandering measures (all water bodies listed) measures. 87
Table 11: The Water bodies that are limited by their Macrofauna score, their partial EQRs
(respectively EQR max,s , EQR max, v, EQR max,P and EQR max,BOD ) and their resulting partial limiting factor (after having implemented action round 1). 88
Table 12: Multiple possible values for the cleaning up point sources reduction percentage and
the resulting EQR max,BOD. (Krombeek). 89
VIII
Table 13: Macrofauna and Fish score (both absolute and relative to the initial situation) after also having implemented the round 2 measures. 90
Table 14: Macrofauna and Fish score (both absolute and relative to the initial situation) after also having implemented the round 3 measures. 91
Table 15: The FishAbun and FishSpec values of the water bodies that still haven’t reached the 0.6 limit, their distance from this goal together with the derived maximum value that will be used as input value for fish population management restoration action and their new values after having implemented the phase 2 measure. 93
Table 16: Macrofauna and Fish score (both absolute and relative to the initial situation) after also having implemented the phase 2 measures. 94
Table 17: Positive and negative elements of the WFD-Explorer. 106
Table 18: The Water Framework Directive and the Habitat Directive: different scales. 6
IX
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 1: Schematic representation of organisation and planning of the integrated water policy as foreseen in the DIWB (CIW, 2006A). 11
Fig. 2: The basin level and partial basin level in Flanders (a) and the Zwalm river basin (b) (CIW, 2007; Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 A). 14
Fig. 3: The causal framework for describing the interactions between society and environment (EAA, 2003). 19
Fig. 4: The original FP5 projects and the Harmoni-CA cluster: related research efforts with common objectives (Arnold et al., 2005). 21
Fig. 5: Goal setting following the WFD approach (left) or the more pragmatic bottom-up Prague approach (right). Adapted from MNP (2006). 28
Fig. 6: Outline of method developed within the WFD-Explorer (Leven met Water, 2007). 30
Fig. 7: Soil erosion of agricultural land (Province of East Flanders, 2007). 39
Fig. 8: The Water Framework Directive: One coherent management framework for all water- related legislation (
Fig. 9: The relationships between the quality elements and the ecological status for natural waters (EC, 2005). 46
Fig. 10: The 5 classes for natural water and accompanying color codes (STOWA, 2006). 48
Fig. 11: Goal determining method for natural waters according to the WFD-practices (MNP, 2006). 48
Fig. 12: The 4 classes for heavily modified waters with accompanying color codes (STOWA, 2006). 49
Fig. 13: Goal determination according to the WFD method for heavily modified waters (MNP, 2006). 50
X
Fig. 14: Part of the Zwalm river basin that was judged to be heavily modified water. 55
Fig. 15: An example of the effect of restoration actions on the Fish score (and EQR) (Leven met Water, 2007). 68
Fig. 16: The impact of a 75% reduction of phosphorus sources on the total phosphorus quantity and the total EQR score. The relative total phosphorus is calculated by the following formula: Relative phosphorus = (after implementing discharge decrease - before discharge decrease) / before) * 100%. 71
Fig. 17: The location of the six most important weirs in the Zwalm river basin. 73
Fig. 18 : The relationships between actions (both control actions and actions that intervene with steering variables) and Biological Quality Elements present in our research (adapted from Leven met Water, 2007). 76
Fig. 19: WFD-Explorer representation of the initial Ecological Quality Ratio situation in the Zwalm river basin. 77
Fig. 20: WFD-Explorer representation of the Ecological Quality Ratio situation in the Zwalm river basin, after having sequentially implemented several measure rounds. 95
Fig. 21: The evolution of WFD-Explorer goal (van Geest, 2008). 105
XI
INLEIDING
Net zoals voor vele andere beleidsvlakken is ook het waterbeleid in België en Vlaanderen voor een groot deel Europees bepaald. De visie dat water als deel van een systeem en dus samen met waterbodems, fauna en flora moet gezien worden gaf recentelijk aanleiding tot het uitvaardigen van de ‘Europese Kaderrichtlijn Water’. Deze richtlijn stelt bepaalde kwantitatieve en kwalitatieve doelstellingen op het vlak van zowel grond-, bodem- als oppervlaktewater voorop. De Vlaamse vertaling hiervan was het begin van een nieuw soort beleid en een nieuwe opvatting van waterbeheer. Deze masterproef behandelt de implementatie van het Vlaamse en Europese waterbeleid op het meest gedetailleerde schaalniveau: het niveau van het deelbekken.
Het eerste deel van deze masterproef geeft een overzicht van verscheidene zaken die van belang blijken bij het bespreken en evalueren van het waterbeleid. Na een korte inleiding op de oorsprong van de hedendaagse benadering van waterbeheer en de Europese Kaderrichtlijn Water wordt ook het belang van ‘Decision Support Systems’ en hiermee gerelateerde projecten voor het waterbeleid kort aangeraakt. Specifiek voor deze masterproef zal dieper ingegaan worden op de KRW-Verkenner, een software toepassing ontwikkeld in het kader van het Nederlandse ‘Leven met Water’ project dat mogelijke maatregelen met betrekking tot het realiseren van de Kaderrichtlijn Water simuleert.
Het tweede deel van deze masterproef bespreekt vooreerst het case studie gebied, namelijk het Zwalmdeelbekken, in meer detail. Een overzicht en korte samenvatting van de gerelateerde documenten word beschreven. Verder wordt ook dieper ingegaan op hoe het uiteindelijke doel werd gesteld op Europees vlak en hoe dit werd vertaald naar Vlaamse doelstellingen. Het is namelijk zo dat er heel wat factoren hebben meegespeeld bij het opstellen van de uiteindelijke Kaderrichtlijn Water en de bepaling van de Zwalmdeelbekken doelstellingen: reeds bestaande Europese en regionale wetgeving, nieuwe principes en de noden van verschillende belangengroepen in het Zwalmdeelbekken. Vooraleer over te gaan naar het onderzoeksgedeelte van deze masterproef wordt verder ook nog even gekeken naar algemene criteria die bepalen als een maatregel al dan niet effectief is en ook de specifiek vooropgestelde acties voor het Zwalmdeelbekken.
In het derde en laatste deel wordt het effect van enkele maatregelen uitgetest met behulp van een softwaretool: de KRW-Verkenner. Door middel van verscheidene simulatierondes wordt getracht de doelstelling van ‘goede’ waterkwaliteit te behalen. Tot slot wordt hier ook een gebruikersevaluatie van deze tool toegevoegd.
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INTRODUCTION
Similar to many other policy domains, Belgian and Flemish water management is mainly stipulated by the European legislation level. The system vision on water that always considers it simultaneously with land, fauna and flora recently gave rise to the issuance of the ‘European Water Framework Directive’. This directive imposes specified quantitative and qualitative objectives for both ground and surface water. The resulting regional translation was the start of a new kind of policy and a new view on water management in Flanders. This master thesis deals with the Flemish and European water policy on the most detailed scale level: the partial basin level.
The first part of this document presents an overview of various elements that are certainly relevant when discussing and evaluating the water policy. After a short introduction on the origin of the contemporary water management approach and the European Water Framework Directive, the importance of ‘Decision Support Systems’ and associated projects for the water policy are shortly touched upon. More specifically, the WFD-Explorer tool will be discussed more thoroughly. This software application tool was developed as part of the ‘Living with Water’ project and simulates possible measures with regard to the Water Framework Directive goal realization.
The second part of this master thesis mainly looks into the case study area, the Zwalm partial river basin. An overview, together with a short summary of related documents is provided. Furthermore, the road that led to both the ultimate European and Flemish objectives is examined. Namely, this was influenced by several factors: already existing European and regional legislation, new principles and the needs of several stakeholders involved in water management. Just before moving over to the actual research part, some general criteria that determine measure effectiveness and some specific action proposals for the Zwalm river basin are looked into.
In the third and last part, the effect of some possible measures is simulated by means of a software tool: the WFD-Explorer. The Water Framework Directive goals should finally be reached by sequentially implementing multiple action rounds. To conclude, a user evaluation of this tool is described.
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1. Background
This chapter describes some aspects that clarify the driving forces behind this research and some important elements that are closely related to it. First of all, some background history of multiple factors that determined the contemporary water management approach is discussed. Next, the legal setting (both on a European and on a Flemish level) is explained. Third, the value and relevance of Decision Support Systems for the water management is clarified. Lastly, the origin and method of the software instrument (WFD-Explorer) that will be used for the Zwalm river basin case study will be dealt with.
1.1 The history of our contemporary integrated and holistic approach of water
management
Life on earth is not possible without water. Since many centuries, the presence of water in general and rivers specifically has been an important factor in economic development. For example, hydropower generation increased productivity significantly, and in many areas an irrigation possibility is necessary for the agriculture industry. We can say that in many domains, rivers were the engine of societal progress. But since the industrial revolution (beginning of the 19th century in continental Europe) and associated rapid economic development, it also became more and more clear that economic growth incurred a cost too: the increasing deterioration of many natural resources. Unfortunately, governments, often under pressure of lobbying groups and blinded by unrestricted capitalistic optimism, long chose to pursue short term economic advantages above a more demanding but responsible and sustainable development. As follows, environmental protection was hardly a consideration in the first stages of industrial urbanization.
Most water used by humans is freshwater. Unfortunately, only 3% of the word water resources can be categorized as freshwater. And even then, two thirds of this stock is inaccessible (because it is in the form of polar ice, snow or glaciers). It is thus reasonable to say that freshwater resources are very limited. Nevertheless, they are still often overused. This endangers an adequate supply of water for the future. According to the UNESCO's "World Water Development Report" (2003), at least two billion people in 48 countries will suffer from water scarcity by the middle of this century. This does not only affect developing countries, but also all industrialized countries. Furthermore, not only the supply of water is currently put in danger, also the quality of our water resources is dramatic. According to UN estimates, 95 % of all wastewater worldwide is not adequately treated. This remarkable affects the
3 health of the population in many regions (Bogena, Hake, Vereecken, 2004). Above figures clearly indicate the need for resource-conserving use and sustainable management of natural water resources. It means that both quantitative and qualitative water demand of the present generations should be ensured without overlooking the future water needs. This is also a key element of the Water Framework Directive (see further).
Luckily, already in the sixties and seventies, the need to rethink the current water policies began to strike the people and policy-makers. However, it was really until the nineties before the water policy playing field genuinely changed. Until the seventies, many water pollution problems were often still seen as a consequence of point sources and thus locally solved instead of by an integrated approach. Experts and specialised agencies still thought they could solve the problem by themselves, and denied the increasing complexity of the issue. But, the growing involvement of different types of stakeholders implies different interests and values. Water can have very diverse functions and competition between all those diverging interests and can result in a suboptimal situation (De Sutter, 2008).
For example, the straightening and hardening of an upstream part of a river helps to evacuate faster the water in that region, but can cause a flood problem in a downstream part of the same river. Another example is the quantitative and qualitative interdependence between surface water, ground water and heaven water. Polluted heaven or surface water can seep through and become polluted ground water and poison the soil. Oppositely, groundwater can well up and contaminate ground water. These examples clearly demonstrate that managing environmental processes independently is inefficient, insufficient and often far from optimal. That is why more and more integrated models and the use of decision support systems (cf. infra: Water Framework Directive Explorer) are considered as a new way to handle this complexity.
Al these changes did not come unexpectedly, but were a result of multiple political, economical and social conditions at both the local, regional and European level. According to Kaika (2003), there were three elements that influenced the movement towards a changed view on water management. Firstly, there was the significant growth in the number, responsibilities, and relationship complexity of actors involved in water management. Issues like the need to harness water from further away and the expansion of the ecological footprint entailed the emergence of regional and international agreements and institutions for water management. The second parameter of change was the multiplication of both the power centres and scales at which the decision-making process took place. Obviously, this is a consequence of above first influence. There was a shift from the local to the global level and the emergence of the European Union itself can be seen as an example. Finally, environmental issues were put on the political agenda as a result of a growing environmental conscience and the search for a more holistic approach in water policy. Environmental protection has now become the centre of debates about water supply and management at all levels of governance.
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According to Molle (2006) the revival of the integrated river basin approach, thus seeing ‘the bigger picture’, is enforced by four other factors: (1) environment specialists use an ‘ecosystem approach’: land, water and living resources make one system, (2) the cost of water supply and treatment drew attention to the economic side of water management, (3) as also recognized by Kaika (2003), the growing interconnectedness and competition between all users implies the need to work on a basin level and (4) experience reaffirmed the logic of a basin level approach.
In the nineties, the concept ‘Integrated Water Resources Management’ (IWRM) clearly found its entrance in the world of water planning and management. It is a widely recognized framework to deal with the complexity and dynamics in ecological processes. In the IWRM view, water is holistically seen as an integral part of ecosystems, a natural resource and a social and economic good. It promotes the coordination of developing and managing water and its related resources in a multidimensional (time, space, multidiscipline and stakeholders) and sustainable way (Dietrich, Schumann, Lotov, 2004; Medema, McIntosh, Jeffrey, 2008). Also, the river basin as planning a management unit was finally totally accepted. This evolution came together with the growing importance of system analysis: planning of any kind should be interdisciplinary, continuous and adaptive (Biswas, 2004).
Above pattern can be proven by some quotes of important international institutes like the World Bank: “in many countries, institutional reform will focus on river basins as the appropriate unit for analysis and coordinated management” (World Bank, 1993) or the World Water Commission: “Every river basin system should be managed holistically” (World Water Commission, 2000). In Europe, the European Water Framework Directive was issued. It is clearly a result of the new way of thinking in water policy and is also based on the river basin as analysis unit. It will be more fully explained in the next section.
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1.2 The legal framework for an integrated water policy
1 1.2.1 European guideline: The European Water Framework Directive
One of the major global challenges of the 21st century will be the sustainable use and management of water. Quantitative water demand has increased enormously in the last decades, but at the same time, for many purposes, water quality has become crucial. This evolution has a price. Erosion and drought are examples of consequences of this careless human water resources exploitation. Consensus is that water should be treated as natural heritage and be protected as such (EC, 2000).
One should consider a few key aspects when drawing the outlines for a new way of managing water. First of all, water should be viewed as a system of not only surface water, river banks and ground water but also of plants and animals existing in the environment, technical infrastructure and biological or chemical processes. Thus, the whole of all above-mentioned matters should be taken into account in order to repair, preserve and develop the total of a certain water system. Furthermore, a water system cannot be limited to any administrative or political boundaries. National, federal, provincial and municipal governments should work out an integrated policy together with all stakeholders, and collaborate in planning and implementing this integrated water policy. This is called ‘Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). Management by river basin 2 – the natural geographical and hydrological unit – is the best option (cf. section 1.1) (CIW 2007 A; EC, 2000).
Therefore, in December 2000, the European Water Framework Directive was issued. It replaced seven old directives and streamlined the European water legislation. This Directive is the result of a process of more than five years of discussions and negotiations between a wide range of experts, stakeholders and policy makers. It is an operational tool of the European Parliament with the purpose of analysing, managing and planning the European water resources, and this at river basin level, to “… pursuit objectives of preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment, in prudent and rational utilisation of natural resources, and to be based on the precautionary principle and on the principles that preventive action should be taken, environmental damage should, as a priority, be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay” (EC, 2000).
1 This paragraph is based on the total of governmental information like the EU Water Framework Directive (EC, 2000) and Flemish information brochures from the CIW (CIW, 2006 A; CIW, 2006 B; CIW, 2007) and VMM (VMM, 2001). 2 Definition of River Basin (EC, 2000): the area of land from which all surface run-off flows through a sequence of streams, rivers and, possibly, lakes into the sea at single river mouth, estuary or delta.
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Implementation should be coherent between the different member states. Therefore, guidelines and requirements are described in the ‘Common Implementation Strategy’ (CIS) (May 2001). An open consultation process allowed all interested parties (experts and stakeholders) to express their opinions and help developing the final CIS document. The main objective herein is to support the practical implementation of the WFD to be effective. This is done by developing common and coherent understanding and guidance on the key WFD elements. This includes developing common methodologies and approaches and sharing experience and information.
Following aspects are crucial (CIW, 2007):
3 The main objectives is to reach a ‘good’ chemical quality of all European ground and surface
water, a good ecological 4 surface water quality and a good quantity 5 of ground water by the year 2015. Thus, it should prevent further deterioration and protects and enhances the status of ecosystems and protect and improve the aquatic environment by means of several measures, like the progressive reduction and phasing-out of discharges and emissions of hazardous substances. Some deviations are tolerated for reasons of technical feasibility, disproportionate costs or natural conditions. For example, artificially constructed surface water should only reach a good ‘ecologic potential’. In such circumstances, it is possibly permitted to delay the deadline until two further six-year cycles of planning and implementations of measures (until 2021 or 2027) or settle with less ambitious goals;
furthermore it wants to mitigate the consequences of floods and droughts and secure the European water supply;
one other important goal is to calculate and charge correct prices for water by 2010. Revenues of water collection, treatment and supply are often way too low in comparison to the costs. Prices should be the driver of rebalancing a continuously increasing demand with the supply.
3 Environmental norms should be respected. Some specific polluting and dangerous substances are on a list (like RL 76/464/EEG). It is necessary that all European countries will agree on norms and substances, thus on a common list. The emission of ‘priority dangerous substances’ should be entirely eliminated. The chemical state can’t be in a way that harms the surface water or the land ecosystem, or can’t change in a way that permits intrusion of salt or other substances (EC, 2000). 4 This is a result of the ensemble acting of a lot of factors like biological elements (flora, fish population,), quantitative aspects, chemical and physical-chemical quality… (EC, 2000) 5 A balance between water subtraction and ground water supply, the level can’t be in a way that would negatively influence the surface water or land ecosystems or can’t change in a way that permits intrusion of salt or other substances (EC, 2000).
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Adequate pricing should work as an incentive to a more sustainable use of water in order to enable a long-term protection of available water resources;
information, consultation and involvement of the public are also of great importance. This is first of all in order to balance the interests of various groups and secondly to increase the transparency in a way that allows citizens to influence the behaviour of their government.
To conclude, it is clear that it will include a whole lot of aspects in the water management area, from protecting the status of ecosystems to the promotion of sustainable water use. It can be considered as the long-term policy concerning European water management. Furthermore, it also has clearly defined short-term interim objectives and deadlines. Some specific deadlines are listed in Table 1. These are not just ‘guidelines’ but legal requirements. Several aspects are practically elaborated via daughter directives, like the ‘daughter directive groundwater’. To help the Member States with the implementation process, pragmatic ‘guidance documents’ are elaborated, tailored to a specific regional or national context.
Table 1: Water Framework Directive timetable for implementation (
Year Issue Reference 2000 Directive entered into force Art. 25 2003 Transposition in national legislation Art. 23 Identification of River Basin Districts and Authorities Art. 3 2004 Characterisation of river basin: pressures, impacts and economic analysis Art. 5 2006 Establishment of monitoring network Art. 8 Start public consultation (at the latest) Art. 14 2008 Present draft river basin management plan Art. 13 2009 Finalise river basin management plan including programme of measures Art. 13 & 11
2010 Introduces pricing policies Art. 9
2012 Make operational programmes of measures Art. 11
2015 Meet environmental objectives Art. 4 First management cycle ends Second river basin management plan & first flood risk management plan
2021 Second management cycle ends Art. 4 & 13
2027 Third management cycle ends, final deadline for meeting objectives Art. 4 & 13
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The local governments of the EU Member States are advised in their process to improve the water quality. For example, (article 13) Member States are required to establish a plan for each of their river basin districts 6 and obliged to involve stakeholders (‘public participation’) in the development of their plan.
Integration has to be a key concept and the river basin is the planning and managing unit (also cf. section 1.1). The concept of integration has to be applied on several levels: Integration of environmental objectives (quality, ecology, quantity), of all water resources (surface water, groundwater, coastal water…), of all water uses, functions and values, of all water legislation … (
1.2.2 Flemish implementation
In Flanders, before the European Water Framework Directive, about 35% of the domestic wastewater was discharged in the surface waters without any treatment (Mouton et al., 2009). This rather bad statistic shows the need of the Flemish government to look at their river management in a new perspective. Nevertheless, the Flemish government was already doing efforts to improve the quality of the surface water. This is made clear by the hand of the evolution of the Belgian Biotic Index from 1990 until 2005. The BBI method uses macro-invertebrates as indicators for the level of pollution (De Pauw and Vannevel, 1993; Goethals, 2005). They put that increasing pollution will result in a loss of diversity and a progressive elimination of certain pollution-sensitive groups. In a 15-year period, the share of measure points with good water quality rose from 17% up to 32%, and the share of measure points with very bad quality declined to less than 10% (Goethals, De Pauw, D’heygere, 2007). But, this was most of all the effect of small-scale measures such as remeandering. The water quality in the Zwalm partial basin improved a lot during the year 1999, due to investments in sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants during the last years (VMM, 2000; VMM, 2007).
The European WFD says that “decisions should be taken as close as possible to the locations where water is affected or used” (EC, 2000). Therefore, Member States are given the responsibility of drawing up programmes of measures adjusted to regional and local conditions. So, in 2003, the European Water Framework was converted into the Decree of Integrated Water Policy (Vlaamse Gemeenschap, 2003). The Flemish government worked together with several water or environmental related institutions like the VMM (Vlaamse Milieu Maatschappij – Flemish Environment Agency), and reformed the already existing VIWC (Vlaams Integraal Wateroverleg Comité - Flemish Integrated Water Management
6 Definition of River Basin District (EC, 2000): the area of land and sea, made up of one or more neighbouring river basins together with their associated groundwater and coastal water, which is identified as the main unit for management of river basins
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Committee), into the CIW (Coordinatiecommissie Integraal Waterbeleid - Coordination Commission of Integrated Water Policy). All Flemish water administrators and representatives of other involved fields (like Agriculture and Fishery) are part of this official consultative platform. The CIW is authorized for the preparation, planning, control and follow-up op the integrated water policy and fulfils the secretaryship and chairmanship (CIW, 2006A).
The decree had several elements. First, together with the repetition of EU definitions of all specific objectives and basic principles are expressed. Secondly, it proposes financial instruments (like the acquirement of real estate properties) and determines how water systems are classified in river basins, river basin districts, and sub-basins 7. In Flanders, sub-basins are subdivided in basins and partial basins 8. Furthermore, consultation structures and how they should prepare and monitor the policy were pictured. Lastly, it describes how the public participation can be attained (CIW, 2007). On April 8 th 2005, thus one year later, the decree was approved by the Flemish government and summarised in five policy lines. More specific execution resolutions made all this concrete.
First of all, water bodies had to be geographically assigned to River Basin Districts and River Basins. This subdivision is enforced by the European Water Framework Directive. In Flanders, basins and partial basins are the next and last breakdown step. Consultation and planning processes are present at each separate level. In addition, the importance of a strong coherency and connection across all levels and plans reflects the interdependency and integrated system approach. Important tasks of the CIW are to coordinate the different water management plans, make sure they take into account the general water policy, and list all contradictions. The practical organisation is defined together with the responsibilities of each level in Figure 1.
7 Definition of Sub-basin (EU, 2000): The area of land from which all surface run-off flows through a series of streams, rivers and, possibly, lakes to a particular point in a water course (normally a lake or a river confluence. 8 De Flemish government subdivides the sub-basins by means of mainly hydrographical criteria into partial basins. When surface water bodies cannot be classified into a partial basin by hydrographical criteria, the Flemish government assigns them entirely or partially to the closest of most convenient partial basin (Vlaamse Gemeenschap, 2003)
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Fig. 1: Schematic representation of organisation and planning of the integrated water policy as foreseen in the DIWB (CIW, 2006A).
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How is all above handled practically? The process of planning and analysing mostly happens at river basin scale, called River Basin Management Planning (RBMP) (Old, Packman, Scholten, 2005). The CIW drew up such a systematic plan which consists of three main stages (CIW, 2006 B; VMM, 2001).
1.2.2.1 The first step: analyse and evaluate the current situation
This embodies three aspects: (1) analysing features of the river basin (like type, reference state, sources of deterioration), (2) what is the impact of human activities (kind and extent), (3) an economic analysis of the water all possible water use (extent, investments and costs of water supply to different buyers and water purification).
1.2.2.2 The second step: a method to monitor and control the implementation
They should check the chemical and ecological water quality and see if there are improvements and if the goals are likely to be met at the deadline. It consists of both operational monitoring (are the restoration measures effective) and state/trend monitoring (every six year intensively measurements to enable the identification of long term trends and the human impact). Every European country should have the same classification methods and standards to enable comparison.
1.2.2.3 The last step: the actual water policy: river basin planning and measure programmes
Management plans are drawn up for each river basin. Every six year they are checked and updated if necessary. All plans should contain some obligatory elements like features of ground and surface water, the human impact, where are the measurement points… The river basin plan itself can be extended with more detailed plans of a specific basin area or tailored for a specific industry (VIWC, 2000; VMM, 2001).
The second part of a water policy consists of ‘measure programmes’. These measures can come from nation or European legislation, or can be specific for each river basin. One of the most important principles is the combined approach of dealing with both point sources and diffuse sources. Drainage standards for wastewater and quality goals should be aligned. Both basic measures (minimum requirements) and supplementary measures are defined. In Flanders, the specific goal was set to reduce the amount of untreated domestic wastewater down to 20%. A range of possible measures was elaborated, but the possible effect was never a subject of investigation.
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1.2.3 The Flemish partial basin level and the Zwalm partial river basin
Because the purpose of this research it to investigate bottlenecks and measures of the Zwalm partial basin, it is useful to look at this level a bit closer.
Too often, there is still a large gap between the coordinating European, regional (here: Flemish) or basin level, and the daily local water policies at the community and other related levels. In Flanders, it appears that all regulations and subsidiary incentives don’t result in concrete ecological returns yet. Local water managers more and more signal that apart from purely financial resources, they also need exact stimuli, deadlines, standards and support to realize the ecological objectives in practice. The partial basin level is increasingly brought into prominence as the ideal level to bridge the gap between these theoretical obligations and the practical implementations. A partial basin water management plan should be able to tune all already planned and existing measures to the new ones and ensure local commitment (Vlaamse Regering, 2002; VMM, 2001).
In Flanders, there are 11 basins, which are broken down into 103 partial basins. These can be found in Figure 2. By the Flemish provinces, also responsible for the secretary, per partial basin or for several partial basins together ‘water boards’ are founded, 52 in total. Water boards are a collaboration between the different water authorities in the partial basin: the Flemish district, the provinces, the communities, the polders and the public body in charge of protection against flooding. These water boards are responsible for drawing up the partial basin management plan and advise on the basin management plan. It can also be responsible for other things like the sewing system and small-scale water treatment. The partial basin management plan stands not on itself, it is part of the basin management plan. This is to preserve a focus on practical realization of measures instead of investing its energy in the formulation of the plan itself, but also to keep it in balance with all above levels. The partial basin plan refines the overall basin plan and elaborates performance focussed actions and measures (CIW, 2007).
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Fig. 2: The basin level and partial basin level in Flanders (a) and the Zwalm river basin (b) (CIW, 2007; Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 A).
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The Zwalm partial river basin includes all watercourses that flow via the Zwalm in the Scheldt. Technically, it is a partial river basin but for the remainder of this text, it will be called ‘Zwalm river basin’ because in all official documents this is how this partial basin is referred to. The whole of this partial basin is on the territory of the province East Flanders and covers the entire communities of Brakel, Zottegem, Zwalm and Horebeke and parts of Oudenaarde, Maarkedal, Oosterzele and Lierde. Hydrographically, it is part of the Upper Scheldt basin in the north of Belgium, and The Zwalm partial basin falls within the jurisdiction of the ‘Water Board Upper Scheldt South’. The Zwalm river basin has a total surface of 11,650 hectare (114 km²) and the Zwalm river has a length of 21.75 km. It rises in the forests of Vloesberg (Flobeq, Wallonia). It forms the border between the communities of Zwalm and Zottegem, and ultimately flows into the Scheldt in the community of Nederzwalm. At the river-mouth, the flow rate is 1.14 m³/s but truly, the debit is very varying, ranging from 0.3 to 4.7 m³/s. This because of varying weather conditions. This variability will have an important impact on the degree pollution during drier periods, because this influences the level of dilution (Dedecker, Goethals, Gabriels, De Pauw, 2004; Ecorem-Haecon, 2002).
Flanders is a densely populated and this has a negative influence on the river systems. In general, water quality in Flanders is in many cases moderate. However, this can sometimes give a wrong impression of the efforts related to water management. Historically, Flemish water management policy gives priority to removing black points first. The next step is then to generally improve the overall water quality from moderate to high. It is thus not a surprise that this overall quality will be lower than in less industrialised countries, were some areas are still intact but other areas are in an extremely bad condition. Related to the case study of this research, it is justified to state that the Zwalm river basin is known as representative for the water quality situation in the rest of Flanders. It goes from excellent in the forested spring areas, to very poor in other parts. (Dedecker et al, 2004). Some areas are heavily influenced by human behaviour such as flood control weirs and straightened river channels. There are two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), but still 40% of the inhabitants are not connected to the centralised sewer systems. Also important is that 74% of the basin is agriculture land, which has a significant effect. It makes the basin sensitive for erosion and this is known as the basis for transportation of contaminated parts further downstream (Mouton et al., 2009).
The water board under which the Zwalm river basin is categorized together with the province of East Flanders was responsible to draw up several documents. Considering interviews with experienced persons in the water management domain and already available information a ‘basic inventory’ was drawn up. From this document, bottlenecks and opportunities could be listed. This led to the goal note and finally the action program. Most of these elements will be discussed later on.
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1.3 Decision Support Systems and modelling
1.3.1 Water management modelling
In general, models can be used for different purposes: to better understand a phenomenon, to enable a better vision of a process or to forecast certain tendencies. Mathematical models have been applied for decades to support obtaining solutions for problems in many domains of water management (and in other management domains) and therefore play a major role in modern day water management too (Old et al., 2005; Scholten et al.).
The old approach considered modelling and related toolboxes as rather ‘hard systems’; it was solely based on the collection of the right inputs, the precision of the mathematic models used and the correct creation of outputs. Applied to water resources management and river basin management, most projects were large scale and the measures were not able to take into account the needs of multiple decision makers with competing objectives (Bruen, 2008).
Increasing complexity in water management, enhanced by the European Water Framework directive (cf. section 1.3.2), induced the need of more sophisticated and ‘soft’ (also focussed on stakeholder communication) models. The last two decades modelling for water management evolved from monodisciplinary models for simple problems to multidisciplinary models for large problems containing several domains, even including socio-economic aspects. There was clearly a shift from tools purely for optimisation, modelling and simulation for expert use, to tools that also assist in compromising, communicating and decision-making and on top are easy-to-use by all stakeholders. Computer-based Decision Support Systems (DSSs) with the capability of performing multiple-criteria analysis have become vital (Bruen, 2008; Refsgaard et al., 2005; Scholten et al., 2007). Undoubtedly, the practical use of Decision Support Systems and software that are able to implement these complex and often multidisciplinary models has grown too.
‘Decision Support Systems’ (DSSs) are a specific important kind of modelling. It has several key components like data, models and rules. To create your own ‘perfect’ model, you have to select components, bring them together and coordinate them. This is a difficult and complex process. According to Horlitz (2007) Decision Support Systems are “computer-based information systems developed to assist decision-makers to address semi-structured (or ill-defined) tasks in a specific decision domain. They provide support of a formal type by allowing decision makers to access and use data and appropriate analytic models”. More simply stated, a Decision Support System can also be defined as a system that “helps decision makers in structuring and evaluating decisions by providing easy-to-use and integrated tools for information elaboration and displaying” (Gottardo et al., 2008).
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While using DSS, the decision-making process is automated. Like that, the decision-making process will become more flexible, transparent, repeatable, changeable and traceable (Gottardo et al., 2008).
1.3.2 Decision Support Systems and the Water Framework Directive
Also in the specific case of the Water Framework Directive, the use of different kind of models can be very helpful and important. For example, ecosystem models could be of great help for river restoration management. Successful implementation of the Water Framework Directive is only possible when concerns on technical feasibility, socio-economic aspects and scientific knowledge are properly integrated. This necessitates models and software to assist in the realization of the different phases described in the WFD (Jorgensen, Refsgaard, Hojberg, 2008). They support decision-making and help to ensure policy makers that the right actions are taken, taking into account the social and economical significance. By simulating the ecological effect of planned actions on the aquatic ecosystems, they facilitate the evaluation of the desirability of the effects (Dedecker et al., 2004). The helpfulness of mathematic models and Decision Support Systems in carrying out the WFD was already tested, for example in Ireland (Irvine et al., 2004) and France (Wasson et al., 2003). This proves that EU Water Framework Directive clearly reinforced the trend of basing water management decisions to a larger extent on modelling studies and more sophisticated models because of its integration need (groundwater, surface water, ecological and economic aspects should be simultaneously considered) and the explicit requirement to weigh multiple measure scenarios (Refsgaard et al., 2005).
Also in the European legal text itself, some references to mathematical modelling and software are made. Annex II, section 1.3 “Establishment of type-specific reference conditions for surface water body types” specifically states that mathematic modelling can be useful in characterising the surface water bodies, more specifically for the determination of different kinds of reference conditions and assessing the likelihood that surface water quality objectives will or will not be met (EC, 2000). For instance, reference conditions could be established by global, regional and functional response models (Wasson et al., 2003).
But model use could go beyond what’s indicated in article 5. Decision Support Systems and tools can provide policy makers and water managers with certain functionalities like information gathering and integration, learning, comparing and selecting management alternatives, assuring stakeholders involvement and participation, communicating and visualising results in a transparent and simply way, and integrating environmental factors with socio-economic aspects (Gottardo et al., 2008). For example, socio-economic models can be used to investigate the effects of water pricing on a countries’ water consumption. Other models could help to understand the extent of pressures like diffuse pollution. When using mathematic modelling for the specific case of the WFD directive, emphasis should be on a multi disciplinary approach, stakeholder participation and the possibility of running a 6 yearly update
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(Old et al., 2005). It is even true to say that the WFD requirement of public participation was a strong incentive for progress in the development of suitable DSSs (Bruen, 2008).
Dietrich et al. (2004) outlined several possible reasons of demand for decision support tools in the WFD implementation process.
They are:
A spatial distributed system; different temporal scales; a large variety of data and information provided by different disciplines; interactions between local measures and regional management strategies; interactions between local and regional authorities; costs efficiency of different management alternatives; use of models and expert judgement in forecasting of ecological consequences of measures; planning of monitoring programs; public information, consultation or active involvement.
Many DSSs related to the Water Framework Directive are already developed (or in progress). A lot of these DSSs are based on (parts of) the DPSIR (Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impacts, Responses) framework (Figure 3). Also in the specific case of the WFD, some tasks are related to one or more elements of the DPSIR framework.
This framework was developed in 2003 by the European Environment Agency (EAA). It emphasizes the complex society-environment interaction aspects, also applicable in the case of integrated river basin management. Currently, a broad and diverse range of environmental indicators that should reveal the progress toward environmental (in this case the Water Framework Directive) policy goals are in use. The EAA DPSIR framework is in place to structure and analyse these indicators (into five categories) and their interrelationships. As the EAA (2003) says, “According to this systems analysis view, social and economic developments exert pressure on the environment and, as a consequence, the state of the environment changes. This leads to impacts on e.g. human health, ecosystems and materials that may elicit a societal response that feeds back on the driving forces , on the pressures or on the state or impacts directly through adaptation or curative action.“ Specifically with regard to Decision Support Systems, the link between the ‘responses’ (e.g. measures to improve the ecological status by human modifications) and the other elements is of importance. This is namely the drawing up and the implementation of the river basin management plans required by the WFD by 2009. (Dietrich et al., 2004; EAA, 2003)
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Fig. 3: The causal framework for describing the interactions between society and environment (EAA, 2003).
There are a lot of measures and tools that can improve the chemical and ecological status as stated in the WFD requirements. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that all proposed measures will acceptable for all parties and that the available budget will be sufficient to implement all of them. To discuss, negotiate, compromise and refine these measures, it is important that not only the best obtainable scientific and economic information is taken into account, but also that the decisions are made in an unbiased, independent and logical way. This is called the ‘system approach’ to decision making (Bruen, 2008). Evidently, this approach will be crucial for a sound implementation of the Water Framework Directive.
1.3.3 Quality assurance of modelling
Quality assurance is defined as “the procedural and operational framework used by an organisation managing the modelling study to build consensus among the organisations concerned in its implementation, to assure technically and scientifically adequate execution of all tasks included in the study, and to assure that all modelling-based analysis is reproducible justifiable” (Refsgaard et al., 2006). Together with the increasing use of certain models and the corresponding software, the need for quality assurance of the models has grown.
According to Scholten et al. (2007) and Refsgaard et al. (2005) this has several reasons:
Lack of mutual and shared understanding between key-players like modellers and stakeholders due to ambiguous terminology; bad practices concerning the process of handling the input data, model set-up, … ; the data is often insufficient or of poor quality;
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if the knowledge on processes is insufficient, it hinders the ecological modelling; modeller miscommunicates the possibilities and limitations of the modelling project. This can lead to overselling of model capabilities, which induces too high expectations and thus disappointment or quitting of the end-user; it is not clear how the model results in decision making; the modelling process is not sufficient documented and not transparent. Unfortunately, this is necessary to audit or reconstruct projects; the models aren’t integrated (enough): insufficient consideration of economic, institutional and political issues; insufficient attention is given to documenting the predictive capability. This causes incredibility.
Specifically in world of water (management) modelling, several guidelines have been outlined. In that matter, it is important that the developed ‘good modelling practice’ is not seen as a set of rigid rules that does not need any communication between the model developers (modellers) and the end-users (water managers). This would increase the possibility of rejecting or ignoring the guidelines. Unfortunately, most (if not all) modelling guidelines are presented in the form of reports. This certainly not benefits their chance on acceptance (Refsgaard et al., 2005).
The use of guidelines and quality assurance procedures, together with the right amount of modeller- user communication, is definitely crucial for the quality of the modelling results (Refsgaard et al., 2005). In this context, two relevant projects will be discussed hereunder: The Harmoni-CA project and the HarmoniQuA project.
1.3.3.1 The Harmoni-CA project
The theme ‘Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development’ of the European ‘Fifth Framework Programme’ (
9 “CatchMod is a Group of EC FP5 funded projects aiming at development of ICT-tools and supporting methodologies for Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM)” (Arnold, de Lange, Blind, 2005)
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This originated an increasing request for guidance with regard to the use and methodologies of ICT tools in order to harmonise integrative water management throughout the EU. Harmoni-CA (Harmonised Modelling Tools for Integrated Basin Management) tries to answer this need and “should serve as a never ending forum for unambiguous communication, information exchange in order to harmonise the use and development of ICT-tools relevant to integrated river basin management and the implementation of the WFD” (
Fig. 4: The original FP5 projects and the Harmoni-CA cluster: related research efforts with common objectives (Arnold et al., 2005).
It is an example of a project that has been started up in order to establish a connection of good quality between modelling, ICT and the WFD (Jorgensen et al., 2008). The fact is that it is often difficult to transfer newly developed tools from the ‘theoretical’ to the ‘practical’ world. Also, the endeavours of different projects are frequently uncoordinated which leads to the unnecessary duplication of efforts. According to Arnold et al. (2005) there are three main reasons for these difficulties: inadequate information flow between the scientific and the policy-making world, poor level of practical scientific output applicability and the lack of structure that should bring all involved actors together.
The mission statement of the project can be reduced to three main objectives (de Lange, Luiten, Blind, 2002).
Firstly, the project aims to build a bridge from research to practice. This means that they try to bring together the scientific and political world involved in integrated basin management, like end users,
21 policy experts and all other stakeholders. Practically, a large number of targeted workshops and open annual conferences were organized. The goal of the conferences was to open the floor for discussions concerning broad themes. The workshops on the contrary yielded more clear-cut deliverables: the development of a toolbox, a methodological framework for harmonised model support and the integration of modelling and monitoring. Also, it looked for concrete ways to facilitate the science-policy integration (Jorgensen et al., 2008).
Secondly, a forum was created in order to exchange ideas, optimise and co-ordinate existing activities and initiate new projects. It gives guidance on tuning monitoring efforts and model date demand. This should result in both increased quality of environmental assessment and model quality. The ultimate goal is the “development of a widely accepted, flexible, harmonised modelling toolbox including ICT- tools, guidance and methodologies, which can be applied by the various stakeholders in river basins”. It will deliver a framework for the harmonisation of ICT–tools and guidelines involved in an integrated river basin management (
Lastly, all already existing knowledge from the existing CatchMod projects, (Figure 4) that was useful for the implementation of the different requirements of the WFD was synthesised collected and made public in reports and guidances.
1.3.3.2 The HarmoniQuA project (
Another research project is the HarmoniQuA (Harmonising Quality Assurance in model based catchments and river basin management) Project. In this project, a user-friendly guidance and quality assurance (QA) framework is build. An important component of the framework are the software tools for organising knowledge in a structured database to support modellers and water managers throughout the QA process (Kassahun and Scholten, 2006). The EU funded development of this framework is the result of teamwork of experts and experienced persons in model-based water management and software engineers from 10 different countries. Building on the knowledge collected through reviewing existing guidelines (Refsgaard et al., 2005), it should help to ensure a model is properly applied, and consistent procedures are used. It helps, guides, records and reports the actions of a project team, stakeholders, water managers, auditors and the public throughout their modelling process (Old et al., 2005). This should improve the confidence in modelling of all stakeholders (Refsgaard et al., 2005).
To assure quality of modelling and simulation, modellers can use ‘Good Modelling Practices’ or any other existing modelling guidelines and procedures. Sometimes, extra support for a specific task is given by the help function of a software tool. A major disadvantage of these approaches is that they are not
22 capable of helping a modelling team member when a specific problem occurs. A new QA procedure had to be developed, based on existing guidelines and procedures but trying to overcome this last advantage (
First of all, the Knowledge Base (KB) allows experts to organise their knowledge in order to develop QA procedures guaranteeing the quality of modelling processes (Kassahun and Scholten, 2006). This KB helps to extract the right guidance. We take the definitions from Kassahun and Scholten (2006): a knowledge base is “a machine readable and -interpretable collection of information”, and a knowledge base system is “a software system that facilitates acquisition and maintenance of knowledge from experts and makes that knowledge accessible to novice users and other experts”. But how does one go from knowledge to knowledge base? Therefore, the modelling process has to be decomposed. Three decomposition levels can be distinguished: steps, these are groups of tasks, which themselves are groups of activities that have to be performed. We can say that the KB is a flowchart of the modelling process in which the five main steps, several separate tasks and activities and all their interdependencies are represented, described and analysed in detail.
Secondly, the HarmoniQuA Modelling Support Tool (MoST) helps modelling teams to use this expert knowledge. These teams can consist of members with different expertise and roles, but also for various types of modelling purposed and complexities. The MoST can thus be adapted to specific characteristics of the project. This is realized by hand of so called ‘customizations aspects’ who are categorized into one of the following categories: domains (ground water, surface water quality…), user types (modeller, water manager…), application purpose (planning, design…) and job complexity (basic, intermediate and comprehensive) (Scholten et al., 2007). MoST has four components (Old et al., 2005; Scholten et al., 2007): (1) guidance , as a smart and powerful browser it filters relevant knowledge from the KB to specify what has to be done depending on user profile and needs, (2 ) monitor all actions of the modelling project, record and store the data in a structured journal, (3) reporting what is stored in the journal and (4) advice supply based on the journals and previous projects (still in the design stage of development). A recording function allows data to be structured in a journal, and the reporting functionality creates user-specifically reports. MoST makes modelling more transparent and open for audits and for communication with stakeholders and concerned members of the public (Scholten et al., 2007). Thus, it wants to ensure the quality and credibility of the modelling process or model.
According to Refsgaard et al. (2005; 2006), there are some features that are crucial for the quality of a (water) modelling project and therefore logically included in the HarmoniQuA project and its related tools (e.g. Knowledge Base). Firstly, interactive guidelines ensure the dialogue between the modeller and manager. In each phase, the already performed tasks are assessed and reported. If proven to be necessary, the future direction can then be modified. This makes the project flexible and precisely tailored to the needs of the client. Next, transparency and reproducibility are essential for large studies involving complex models. Thirdly, accuracy criteria are vital. They enhance the objectivity.
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Unfortunately, they are difficult to define because of their case specificity and socio-economic context (stake of in the decisions to be supported by the model predictions). Fourthly, uncertainty assessments have to be made. The acceptable (case-specific) uncertainty level has to be determined. This surpasses the traditional purely statistical approach and uses also mechanisms like scenario analysis. Fifthly, model validation will form a future challenge. Next, the demarcation of dedication aspects , like the types of users, the modelling domains and the level of job complexity are key. Lastly, also external reviewing (to ensure independency), public interactive guidelines (to facilitate dialogue between modellers, water manager, auditors, stakeholders and the public) and feedback loops (from fully technical to go-kill points that precede important and costly steps).
1.3.3.3 Other projects
Other projects are HarmoniCO (concerning good communication in the participative planning setting), MULINO (the integration of environmental models and decision support models), and many more. Critics say that all those models and research project are too focused on scientists and professionals. Everything is way too complicated to be used by real water managers and stakeholder. The KRW- Explorer, further discussed in detail in 1.4, is one decision support tool that tries to overcome this and aims to be as user-friendly as possible.
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1.4 The WFD-Explorer
1.4.1 The need for a tool
Software tools in general and the WFD-Explorer specifically can facilitate water management and the implementation of water policies. This can be done in four main ways, which will be discussed hereunder.
1.4.1.1 Perform activities required by the Water Framework Directive
As discussed in section 1.2, because of the European Water Framework Directive, governments have to look after and take care of their ground and surface water systems and the related ecological quality in order to reach the Water Framework Directive targets in 2015. While striving to achieve this goal, several measures can be elaborated. Because of the water’s system characteristic, assessing the effectiveness of possible measures is a very complex task. Namely, the complexity of a water system implies interdependencies and relationships between surface water, river banks and ground water but also plants and animals like fish, technical infrastructure and biological or chemical processes (supra, section 1.1 and 1.2). Water managers need a tool to weigh different alternative measures on the basis of expected outcomes relative to expected costs. This means that the effectiveness of different possible restoration options should be compared (Palmer et al., 2005; Roni et al., 2002).
The Water Framework Directive specifically requires the accomplishment of several assessment and management activities. More specifically, in order to bridge the gap between the current and this desired status, the definition of a wide range of possible management measures and the establishment of a River Basin Management Plans (RBMP) is called for. According to the Water Framework Directive, this should be finished by the end of 2009 (see section 1.2). Decision Support Systems can assist in developing effective River Basin Management Plans. If the system is used as a management tool (and not solely as a communication or information tool, see 1.4.1.2 and 1.4.1.3) it is crucial that different scenarios can be constructed and compared (Gottardo et al., 2008). The WFD-Explorer analyses the current river status and the effect of different restoration scenarios at river basin level. It therefore helps the different people involved in the WFD implementation to effectively compare diverse settings and elaborate such plans.
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1.4.1.2 Open up ecological knowledge
Also, available ecological knowledge should be opened up to all actors in water management and software tools should help them to gain insight into the relationship between ecological objectives, measures and outcomes. Information streams should be controllable and new insights should be efficiently integrated. The WFD-Explorer serves as a platform to cluster this knowledge from several sources.
In recent years, it has become more important to strive for evidence-based policymaking. This should stand for better-informed and more effective legislative and regulatory decisions. Yet, some major challenges are associated with the effectiveness of transmissioning and translating scientific information into information both understandable and usable for the policymakers. Traditionally, this transfer was regarded as unidirectional and linear. Lately, the more interactive two-way approach is breaking through. Both sides should take their responsibility. On one hand, the policymakers should base their decisions on variety of sources of information and reach out to more actors. On the other hand, the scientific community should do their research with the needs of the community in mind and expressed in a more accessible language (Lagacé, Holmes, McDonnell, 2008).
This trend also influenced the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in practice. One of the biggest criticisms of the WFD is the substantial gap between the policy setting and realization on one hand, and the scientific knowledge that should be the basis for it (Lagacé et al., 2008). Therefore, while developing and delineating a DSS like the WFD-Explorer, it is vital to enable a close communication between the scientific and the policy field. This should ensure that the DSS is able to deliver the output and the technical requirements that are needed and expected by the end-users (Gottardo et al, 2008).
1.4.1.3 Communicating
Also, one of the key requirements of the Water Framework Directive is to involve stakeholders (i.e. all the public, private and non-governmental associations that are involved in water body management and whose concerns can be incompatible) and stimulate public participation. Decision Support Systems should support the debate and communication concerning water management, and serve as a basis for motivated and funded decisions (
The communicative aspect of tools like the WFD-Explorer is thus a crucial determinant of their success. It helps to justify decisions to stakeholders, enhances communication between scientists, river managers and stakeholders, and helps to extend their general knowledge of the river system (Mouton
26 et al., 2009). If only considering the traditional planning and simulation approach, only the basic cost/benefit analysis of different measures and scenarios would be taken into consideration. As multiple social and economic criteria are also of importance in a political environment, it is clear that this traditional approach has some shortcomings. Therefore, the top-down approach of the European WFD should be combined with a bottom-up approach of actively involving regional stakeholders in the process of river basin management planning (Dietrich et al., 2004). This prerequisite can be realized by the communicative aspect of software tools in general and the WFD specifically.
1.4.1.4 Harmonize ecological goal setting
Fourthly, the WFD-Explorer aims to harmonize ecological goal setting. It stimulates a uniform approach and coordinates the regional and national policies. This is realised by the functionality to determine the maximum ecological potential (MEP) and good ecological potential (GEP) for non-natural waters, based on the Prague method. This method originates from a meeting in Prague (Czech Republic) with European water policy involved people. The Netherlands suggested developing a more pragmatic method to determine the MEP, GEP and the resulting measures.
This bottom-up method goes as follows: Starting from the current situation, it looks which measures are realistic. Measures that are harmful or measures that are not very effective are excluded. The resulting improvements of the remaining useful and payable measures are added up and give the good ecological potential (GEP). It becomes than possible to compare the results of the applied measures to this figure. It also shows the ecological improvement potential compared to the current situation beforehand (how good is it going to be?). Regrettably, this method doesn’t show the distance from the ultimate situation (how good could it be?) (STOWA, 2006).
Hereunder, Figure 5 explains the different steps of the method and its differences with the traditional method.
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Fig. 5: Goal setting following the WFD approach (left) or the more pragmatic bottom-up Prague approach (right). Adapted from MNP (2006).
As will become clear in section 3, for natural waters no GEP and MEP need to be determined. Furthermore, most waters of the Zwalm river basin study area are exactly judged to be natural waters. This limits the usability of this feature of the WFD-Explorer in our case study.
1.4.2 Origin of the tool
The WFD-Explorer is a user-friendly tool developed in the Netherlands by a cooperation of several research institutions and university groups together with the authorities responsible for water management and consultancy bureaus. It is a government sponsored project and part of the ‘Living with water’ project 10 . It is freely available and supported by a special project group that is responsible for manning a helpdesk and further advancing software and knowledge. In September 2005, a first prototype was ready and tested on a small area. Soon, some shortfalls and difficulties were discovered. They were put right in subsequent version, which was ready July 2006 and was tested in more diverse
10 “A new Dutch impulse programme in which (international) project consortia collaborate on achieving changes in water management. […] It stimulates collaboration between the domains of water management and spatial planning, science and practice, economy and sociology, both at home and abroad.” (
28 pilot areas, both in Belgium and the Netherlands. This did not mean the end of the development process. On the contrary, improving the tool and investigating all possible shortcomings is considered a never ending process. In October 2008, version 1.03 was presented. This new version implements different changes, such as a temporary storage of results to make possible the comparison of various data sets. The objective is to make future versions even faster, using more up-to-date and improved knowledge and calculation rules, connected with other models, and so on. Version 1.04 is aimed to be fully ready already in October 2009. Some precursors are already available (
The studied river is visualized by an interactive GIS 11 tool that allows showing user interactive maps. Some water body characteristics, such as nutrient concentrations and the EQR (Ecological Quality Ratio) are shown as one clicks on a selected part of the river. Several measures can then interactively be picked out of a list shown next to the map. The models used are kept rather straightforward. Because the communicative aspect of tools like the WFD-Explorer is a crucial determinant of its success (see section 1.4.1), showing a quick response to the user’s actions is key. After selecting (a) certain measure(s), the consequences should be readily available to be evaluated and discussed. Unfortunately, this implies generalizations and simplifications of complex models (Leven met Water, 2007).
Spatially, the WFD-Explorer principally aims to optimize the scope and type of measures at river basin level. However, the smallest unit of detail that is used is a water body. But, for these individual water bodies only a superficial impression of the effect of a certain measure can be presented. It thus does not provide any details. If desired, it should be realized through more specific local examinations instead of by the use of the WFD-Explorer software tool. Moreover, descriptions of variances in the water and substance balance over time are restricted to an average summer or winter picture. This certainly exceeds the timeframe in which most physical-chemical processes occur. For many applications, it is very likely that the low degree of detail proves to be an impediment. Nevertheless, keeping in mind the ambition to simply supply a meaningful way to determine the effects of certain measures, the provided level of detail should be able to satisfy that need (Leven met Water, 2007).
1.4.3 The method used by the tool
Basically, the WFD tool aims to provide users a view on the relationship between goals, necessary and possible measures and the effects and costs of these measures. The tool is based on knowledge rules that link certain variables to the ecological and chemical quality of the water body. These rules were developed by members of the consortium and reviewed by ecological experts from different
11 Geographic Information System: captures, stores, analyses, manages and presents data that is linked to a location
(
29 institutions. They are derived from the aggregation and integration of existing ecological process and system knowledge and are subject to frequent reviews. Moreover, they are often updated and adapted in newer versions of the software (Leven met Water, 2007; Van der Most et al., 2006; Van Geest, 2008). Unfortunately, their transferability to other regions besides Flanders and the Netherlands, and therefore the usability of the WFD-Explorer, is limited. This for the reason that they were developed based on empirical data of lowland streams (Mouton et al., 2009).
After the selection of certain measures, the resulting ecological quality of the river basin or the water body is revealed. This is done either directly or via certain intermediary steps. Mostly, the effects of measures on the ecological quality are resolved via the ‘steering variables’ step. These steering variables are state variables that have a significant influence on the ecological quality. They are often hydromorphologic 12 abiotic factors like flow and depth. Some of them are calculated based on profile data provided by the database (Van der Most et al., 2006). Others are based on the ‘balance of water and substances’ (see further in this section).
Fig. 6: Outline of method developed within the WFD-Explorer (Leven met Water, 2007).
12 “Hydromorphology describes the geomorphology and hydrology of a river system, their interactions and their arrangement and variability in space and time. Key elements include the flow and the sediment regimes; channel and floodplain dimensions, topography […]. Artificial features (e.g. bank protection works, weirs) and human modifications to processes are also included.” (Vaughan et al., 2009)
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When planning to implement the WFD explorer, several steps have to be elaborated (Leven met Water, 2007).
First of all, the river basin subject to investigation should be schematised and data concerning all relevant characteristics should be collected. As pictured in Figure 6, the characteristics of the water bodies are translated in a certain ecological quality level via the steering variables.
Secondly, measures should be specified and imported into the database. The basic version of the WFD- Explorer already offers a generic set of 47 measures, categorized in six classes (manure policy, infrastructure, sources, ecological management, water management and others). If necessary, it is possible to tailor them to specific needs or circumstances, or create own (extra) measures. Obviously, this step can be carried out simultaneously with step one. Both steps can also always be upgraded and extended later on.
The ‘balance of water and substances’ is the part of the tool that keeps track of quantitative variances in the streaming of water and substances. It has three important elements: water bodies, drainage areas and sources. To start with, a net balance of drainage areas and sources discharging into water bodies is calculated. The resulting net amount is then subsequently discharged at a fixed rate into the water bodies located downstream. The WFD-Explorer makes use of a simplified transportation of substances. Concretely, it pictures the flow of water and substances following a cascade approach. This means that a certain part of a river receives input from the previous upstream part and serves itself as input for the next downstream part of the river. The discharge quantity can serve as a first steering variable. Substance concentrations in this discharge quantity are other resulting steering variables obtained from the ‘balance of water and substances’. Of course, besides to their quantitative flow, substances are also the subject to several processes. The WFD-Explorer implements this by using a ‘retention fraction’. This is the fraction of the incoming load that remains in the water system and is specified per substance and per season (winter or summer).
Lastly, the flow rate of a stream depends on the resistance that it faces, thus depends on the profile of the stream considered. In the WFD-Explorer, these representative profiles can be selected in the database and serve as input for flow rate, variation in depth and flow calculations. Consequently, these elements are other steering variables.
The different phases of the practical implementation process will be discussed in chapter five (case study) and chapter six (user-evaluation).
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2. Identification of crucial problems and related goals in the Zwalm catchment 13
In this chapter, the area that is the investigated in the case study, namely the Zwalm river basin, will be examined more exhaustively. First of all, a short overview of the related local documents that are obligated by the Flemish government is given. Two important documents are then subsequently looked into in the next sections, both generally and specifically for the Zwalm river basin.
2.1 Related documents
2.1.1 Link with WFD and river basin management plans
For the Zwalm river basin, like for all other partial basins, a so-called ‘goal note’ was drawn up under the responsibility of the Water Board Upper Scheldt South and the province of East Flanders. As required by the Water Framework Directive, Member States are responsible to present draft River Basin Management Plans by 2008 and finalize them (including a programme of measures) by 2009. The partial river basin management plan (like the one of the Zwalm river basin hereunder described) is a part of this required river basin plan (in this case of the Upper Scheldt South river basin). Because of the mutual interdependency between the water management plans at the several levels (as described in chapter 1), the partial basin plan should be in harmony with the basin plan. Unfortunately, they are structured differently. Instead of the 7 tracks approach (partial river basin management plan, cf. infra), the river basin management plan uses a lay-out with a classification into lines of force, operational goals and measures. However, both types of plans provide an overview that links both documents.
13 The whole of this chapter is based on the official documents on the Zwalm river basin provided by the province of East Flanders in connection with the European Water Framework Directive (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid 2005 A- B-C);
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2.1.2 The DuLo Water Plan
In Flanders, the partial river basin plans are called ‘DuLo Water Plans’. (Duurzame Lokale Waterplannen, Sustainable Local Water Plans). The DuLo document describes the desired state of the water system. It intends to realize a sustainable local and integrated water policy. This is a water policy that involves all different actors who all takes their individual responsibilities, and should lead to the realization of the European WFD prerequisites. It is applicable for both rural and civilized areas, and serves both as a guideline for the long term vision and short term policies.
The document is build upon information collected from several other sources: the basic inventory document (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 B), opportunities and bottlenecks as described by and derived from interviews of the involved parties (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 C) and some general principles of integrated water management as described in the Code of good practices for sustainable local water management (Vlaamse Regering, 2002).
First of all, a basic inventory of all important elements is crucial to determine the current state of the basin. It contains detailed information about the location of the partial basin, the water system characteristics, ground water, physical system characteristics, environmentally hygienic infrastructure, area planning and nature (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 B).
Secondly, opportunities and bottlenecks for the Zwalm river basin were derived from interviews between the responsible coordinator of the Zwalm river basin and the three most important involved parties, more exactly the communities (community of Brakel, community of Horebeke, city of Zottegem and community of Zwalm) and two other important involved actors: the local nature association and agricultural association. These interviews were conducted in the period between April 23 2004 and May 28 2004. They were able to sketch a first impression of vital opportunities and bottlenecks based on their experience on the field of water management. It is certainly safe to say that this list will never be final and will always be subject to frequent updates and further elaboration. Also, no judgment was made yet about the degree of reliability and truthfulness. It is thus still quite subjective. Through further investigation and comparison of opinions, an objectification process will be and was already partly conducted in order to make the list more credible (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 C). The opportunities and bottlenecks document will be discussed more thoroughly in the following section (cf. 2.2). Logically, the goal ‘note’ (cf. 2.3) was drawn up based on this document.
Thirdly, the Code of good practices for sustainable local water management, put together by the Flemish Government in 2002, serves as a manual for the planned water management policy in Flanders. Some essential steps necessary to reach a sustainable local water policy and effectively draw up local water policy plans are described. It only provides some indications and guidelines. The actual implementation is left to the local water managers. It should serve as a start for initiating improvement programmes and enable a public participation process (Vlaamse Regering, 2002). Together with above opportunities and
33 bottlenecks documentation, this Code formed the basis of goal note (cf. 2.3). Specifically, it was used to determine the ‘track’ structure of several elements of the goal note and also of the action plan.
2.2 Opportunities and bottlenecks
2.2.1 Flemish approach: the seven tracks
All opportunities and bottlenecks are categorized by 7 distinctive ‘tracks’. Starting from this step, goals are derived and organized following the same track configuration. This should clarify how the policy- makers see the road to realization of the WFD goals. Also the action plan is structured accordingly.
These seven tracks are defined and shortly discussed in the following sections (based on (
2.2.1.1 Maximum retention of precipitation at the source
By keeping heaven water in the area where it fell, flooding will not be shifted to downstream areas as much. This should prevent peak loads, flooding and erosion. Infiltration should be stimulated and heaven water should be maximally separated from sewage water in order to enhance the operational effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants.
2.2.1.2 Wastewater treatment
In the past, several considerable investments in sewage water treatment have already been made by The Flemish Region in cooperation with the communities. Nevertheless, it is still necessary that this policy is continued in the next number of years and extra resources are a prerequisite to reach the 2015 WFD goals.
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2.2.1.3 Guard and improve the quality of sewage and treatment infrastructure
The sewage infrastructure in place should function optimally. This requires frequent and solid maintenance and modernization activities. The basis of these activities is a clear inventory and picture of all existing infrastructure.
2.2.1.4 Prevention and restriction of diffuse pollution
The dispersion of water polluting substances like pesticides and fertilizer should be maximally prevented and limited. This counts for both ground and surface water pollution.
2.2.1.5 Prevention and restriction of erosion and sediment transportation to the watercourse
The area of the Flemish Ardennes (informal name given to the region in the south of the province of East Flanders, including the area of the Zwalm river basin) is hilly and has loamy soils. This kind of environment is particularly sensitive to erosion. Also sandy soils can be the cause of instable watercourse banks, especially in parts of the watercourse that are deeply carved and consequently are subject to large pressure caused by seepage water. The specific erosion sensitive areas can be found in the basic inventory document and are also shortly described in section 2.3.2.2. Logically, this track of the water policy firstly tries to work on these root causes. Next to it, the overall bank stability can be improved by the controlling of vermin (musks and rats).
2.2.1.6 Quantitative, qualitative and ecological sustainable watercourse management
Healthy water systems that meet the needs of all stakeholders (including endangered species) should be developed and maintained. The aspect of sustainability anticipates the fact that both current and future population needs for healthy water should be able to be fulfiled. Practically, this implies measures like flood control, restoration of the natural ecological state and the cleaning-up of polluted areas …
2.2.1.7 Sustainable (drinking) water use
Water reserves are put in danger by today’s extensive use. It should be limited wherever possible. This can be done by actions like the installation of economical equipment and a leakage reporting system.
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Another option is to make a sound distinction between low quality water (for low quality purposes like toilet flushing) and high quality water (for high quality purposes like drinking water).
2.2.2 The Zwalm river basin opportunities and bottlenecks
The mentioned problem areas and specific difficulties are the ones cited in the interviews. Because of the limited scope of this research, we will restrict ourselves to an indicative overview of some concrete opportunities and bottlenecks of only the tracks most important for the Zwalm river basin. These are track 2, track 5, the ecological aspect of track 6 and track 7.
Track 2, opportunities and bottlenecks for the sanitization of polluted water, is further categorized into relevant pollution points (six in Brakel, three in Horebeke, five in Zottegem, two in Brakel and one in Zwalm), small water purification installations (possible future locations in Brakel, Horebeke and Zottegem) and sewage water purification installations (possible future location in Zwalm).
Track 5, opportunities and bottlenecks concerning the prevention and restriction of erosion and sediment transportation to the watercourse, lists areas with current or possible erosion problems. This goes from general erosions problems in a community (e.g. Brakel) to more specific difficulties like watercourse bank erosion (e.g. Vaanbuikbeek, Trapmijnsbeek …) and consequently watercourse movement.
The ecological aspect of track 6, opportunities and bottlenecks regarding ecological sustainable watercourse management, deals with particular issues like the possibility to restore ecologically valuable water courses (e.g. Dorenbosbeek, Sassegembeek) and enabling fish migration (e.g. at different water mills).
Track 7, opportunities and bottlenecks related to sustainable (drinking) water use, wasn’t specified (yet) in any of the interviews.
An extensive list of all opportunities and bottlenecks for all tracks can be found in Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid (2005 C).
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2.3 Goal note
2.3.1 Flemish approach
In the end, the European Water Framework directive, which means a good state of all surface and ground water (see section 1.2 and others), should be realized by 2015. The best way to achieve these goals is to systematically follow a source-oriented approach. The focus should thus primarily be on the local level, with occasional attention for higher levels when coordination is necessary because of local level exceeding influences. In order to also reach a sustainable water system, it is important to not only resolve problems like floods and erosion, but prevent them from returning in the future as well (CIW, 2007.
The objectives described in the obligated and official ‘goal document’ (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 C) are mostly subscribed by the policy-makers at different levels and should serve as a real guideline for their water policy. However, this doesn’t mean that all goals will be reached. In certain circumstances, it is not realistic or even possible to achieve a particular guideline, even partially. Therefore, it is the goodwill and extent of effort that matters. Also, the list of goals proposed in an original plan is certainly open for updates and completion. For example, if certain circumstances have changed, it is possible that the related goals have to be readjusted as well.
Based on the goals, certain actions can be derived. A detailed and concrete elaboration of these action plans can be found in a separate document, the ‘action plan‘ document (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 A) which will be discussed later on (cf. section 4.3).
The goals listed in the Flemish water management goal notes are the result of intensive collaboration and consultation between all water managers in a particular partial basin. They should also be submitted to the MINA commissions (Milieu- en Natuurraad, Environment and Nature commission) of communities and provinces. For each track, a general goal is formulated and then elaborated in more detailed lines of force. Furthermore, possible geographical areas and locations of attention are defined.
2.3.2 The Zwalm river basin goal note (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 C)
Similarly to the opportunities and bottlenecks, only the most relevant tracks (2, 5, ecological aspect of 6 and 7) will be discussed because of the limited scope of this research.
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2.3.2.1 Track 2: Sanitization of polluted water
Sanitized water is not only crucial for the ecological status and environmental health of an ecosystem, but if it is of sufficient quality it also can be used for irrigation purposes, or as drinking water in the agriculture industry. Consequently, economical and social stakes should be taken into consideration as well. It is thus obvious that wastewater treatment is a key factor of effective water management.
Today, a network of sewage and water treatment systems and infrastructure is already in place. It covers big parts of the Zwalm river basin area. Unfortunately, some places are yet falling outside their current scope. Based on area plans (obligated by Vlarem II guideline, 1995, last updated April 2009, drawn up by the communities, to be approved by the Flemish government) (Vlaamse Regering 1995), every house or company that lies outside those predefined areas that are connected to centralized treatment should treat its own wastewater. This can be done by means of a septic tank, sometimes combined with an extra biological treatment.
Because of all above, the general goal for track 2 was formulated as follows: All clearly separate groupings of wastewater discharges that cannot use the existing sewage and wastewater treatment network should be sanitized. This means that they either should be connected to an existing Urban Waste Water Treatment Plant (UWWTP) sewage water treatment plant), a Small Scale Waste Water Treatment Plant (SSWWTP) that treats water from a local sewage system, or an Individual Waste Water Treatment Plant (IWWTP). The force lines that go together with this track are then:
The further extension of existing sewage and wastewater treatment infrastructure; a well-thought out IWWTP policy; a (pro)active reaction to new area planning; extra attention to ecological valuable watercourses; limiting and avoiding calamities; the investigation of the possibility of sustainable collaboration with the drinking water companies who have a sanitization obligation.
2.3.2.2 Track 5: Prevention and restriction of erosion and sediment transportation to the watercourse
As also to be found in the basic inventory document and mentioned before in the introduction of the Zwalm river basin, this partial river basin is particularly sensitive to erosion. This is also clear in Figure 7. A lot of the agricultural land is confronted with an erosion quantity of over 10 tons per are per year. Superficial run-off of the upper layer of the soil and the related trenching and even ravine formation cause direct harm to agricultural crops. It brings the deterioration of the most fertile loam layer about, sometimes even until the underlying clay or pebbles becomes visible. The resulting water and mud inconveniences also instigate dangerous road conditions and detriment to houses. Ecologically, the
38 sediment ends up in the water courses and causes harm to the fish population. It also sets off the silting up of rivers and water collecting units. The dredging and clearing out of those elements is time- consuming and costly. For Flanders, the total cost of soil erosion is 90 million euro per year. Converted, this means 288 euro per are (for erosion sensitive areas like the Zwalm river basin). The amount of ran off soil is estimated to be more than 10 ton per are per year. Some measurements in areas similar to the Zwalm basin have even indicated a loss of more than 1 ton in just one heavy thunderstorm (Province of East Flanders, 2007).
Fig. 7: Soil erosion of agricultural land (Province of East Flanders, 2007).
The general goal of this track is therefore to implement tailored measures like choosing for specific crops or land operating methods in order to hinder some forms of erosion. This will help to prevent the contamination of watercourses with harming nutrients or other damaging products that come directly with mud streams or incoming water.
As the Zwalm river basin is situated in the province of East Flanders, it can also count on the ‘Support office for Erosion’. This is a team composed of members of the provincial administration and the communities. It possesses essential know-how and tries to transfer all its knowledge and experience to the communities and the farmers. Also, based on erosion control plans, some subsidiaries are available. Communities can get up to 75% subsidiary to elaborate small-scale erosion control works.
Some examples of erosion control measures are erosion suppressing dams or dikes and small buffering basins. They provide the opportunity of settling the sediment and slowed down water draining of. Specifically for farmers, some source oriented measures can be applied. Some examples are the utilization of sufficient organic material in the upper soil layer, the avoidance of concentrated run off via
39 furrows, the application of buffer areas at the borders of water courses and roads… Also some more small scale measures to be applied by the communities themselves are possible. Some examples here are dams used as small scale catching systems made of environmental friendly materials like chopped wood.
Track 5’s force lines are:
Restricting shore caving by an adequate arrangement of the shores; combat against musks and rats to enhance the stability of the shores; the creation of goodwill with the farmers.
2.3.2.3 Track 6: (Quantitative, qualitative and) ecologically sustainable water management
Generally, this track aims to develop and preserve healthy water systems that can meet the needs of different stakeholders and species. Every function and according stakeholder claim for each water course is taken into account. Actions like the upstream buffering of water, stimulating the self-cleaning capacity and the restoration of the original state of the environment are relevant in this context.
It is clear that respecting all natural characteristics of a water system is the best guarantee to prevent problems and to reach the ecological WFD goals. It so happens that all features and processes in a system are then equilibrated.
Together with this track, following force lines are formulated:
Give the water system the necessary space; ecological restoration of water courses (re-organize, tailored maintenance, define bank areas…); water balance (water level management) quantitative optimization in favor of the present/desired land use; get rid of fish migration bottlenecks; the execution of the study ‘The Zwalm: Toward an ecological restoration of water course and river basin’ (Belconsulting, 2003).
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2.3.2.4 Track 7: Sustainable (drinking) water use
Ground water reserves are limited and should therefore be used carefully. This should be done in both a quantitative and qualitative manner. Firstly, water of low quality should be used for low quality needs. Secondly, one should aim to spend as less as possibly needed.
This general goal should be realized through the carrying out of the following force lines:
The example function of public instances; the stimulation of the population to minimize the use of high quality water for low quality purposes; the stimulation by communities to lessen the use of high quality water in the agro- and horticulture; the stimulation of industry and agriculture to employ rain water instead of ground water; the tracking down and persecution of illegal ground water extraction.
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3 Theoretical goal setting
In this chapter, the roads that led to the European Water Framework Directive goal and the Flemish translation of it will be looked into. To be exact, the final WFD objective was ultimately derived taking into account several related partial objectives, definitions and guidelines. First of all, before the Water Framework directive, some other water and related legislation (both national and European) was already in place. This will be covered in section 3.1 (and Annex 1). Next, it is clear that the issuing of the WFD itself came along with new goal setting directions. This was already discussed in section 1.2, but will be shortly repeated in section 3.2. Lastly, some stakeholders’ needs influenced the type of water body category in a few areas. These pressures are shortly described. After taking into account the relative importance of all these elements, the ultimate (theoretical) objective was determined in section 3.3.
The outcome of this investigation should thus in principle be the objective to be applied in the software simulation exercise of the Zwalm river basin case study. However, as will become clear in chapter 6, because of technical software reasons, our simulation study will work with other goal values. This does not mean that following goal setting analysis is not useful. It can serve as a basis for other research projects or related tasks. It also helps to realize that there are different aspects that played or are still playing a role in modern water management policy.
3.1 Pre-WFD legislation
Already in the seventies, some European water legislation was in place. Logically, this European Water Framework Directive preceding legislation logically had to be reorganized in preparation of the new coordination regulations. Issuing the WFD thus led to the reconstruction of a majority of water management aspects within all EU member states. In this section, some WFD preceding legislation is exhibited (Figure 8). Also, a short overview of their relationships to the Water Framework Directive is presented. A more extensive discussion can be found in Annex 1.
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Fig. 8: The Water Framework Directive: One coherent management framework for all water -related legislation (
The requirements of some old water legislation have been refo rmulated in the WFD and after transitional period they should be repealed. At the end of 2007, following legislation was already repealed (Article 22 WFD):
Surfac e Water Abstraction 75/440/EEC; Exchange of Information on Surface Water Decision 77/795/EEC; Surface Water Abstraction Measurement / Analysis 79/869/EEC.
By the end of 2013, also following legislation will be repealed:
Freshwater Fish 78/659/EEC; Shellfi sh Waters 79/923/EEC; Groundwater 80/68/EEC; Dangerous Substances 76/464/EEC.
Other kinds of legislation like the Nitrates Directive and the Habitats & Birds Directive should be coordinated with the river basin management plans (see Annex VI of the WFD).
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Also, some specific daughter directives from the Water Framework Directive were recently issued. More specifically, the Groundwater Directive (2006/118/EC) and the Priority Substances Directive (2008/105/EC) should take care of these respective particular issues.
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3.2 The Water Framework Directive objectives
3.2.1 Legal text 14
The Water Framework Directive also contains some innovative concepts in comparison with previous European water legislation. It introduces the ‘river basin district’ as the basic management unit of river basins and defines the ‘water body’ as the assessment unit to which the WFD objectives must be directed (Gottardo et al., 2008).
As already covered in section 1.2, the WFD aims to reach a ‘good water status’ for all water by 2015. This good state is subdivided in a good chemical and a good ecological state.
In this research, the focus will be on the ecological state of the surface water. This is evaluated and classified measuring and taking into account three kinds of elements on the individual water body level. First of all, the good ecological status is defined in terms of the key quality elements related to the biological community. Secondly, there are two types of more supporting quality elements, namely the hydromorphological and chemical/physico-chemical supporting quality elements (listed in Annex V of the WFD). For natural water, the relevance of elements and specific conditions depends on the surface water category (river, lake, coastal or transitional water) and specific type (e.g. R4) to which the water body belongs to. For non-natural water (heavily modified or artificial water bodies), the relevant elements are those to whichever of the four natural surface water categories the heavily modified or artificial water body most closely resembles (EC, 2000).
Not all elements should be considered at all times (EC, 2005). The biological quality elements must always be taken into account to assign a certain water body to an ecological class (EQR ratio). However, the hydromorphological quality elements must only be taken into account if a water body is assigned to the ‘high’ ecological status class (or when determining the good ecological status from the maximum ecological potential for non-natural waters). All other classes do not require specific scores. This because of the assumption that if the biological quality elements for these classes are acceptable, the hydromorphological quality elements will automatically be reached too. Lastly, the values of the physico-chemical quality elements should only be taken into account when considering the high and good ecological status classes (or when determining the good ecological status from the maximum ecological potential for non-natural waters or when downgrading from the good to moderate ecological status). Also here, for all other classes, these elements are strongly related to the biological achievements. The relationship between all 3 categories of quality elements and the status classification derivation is schematically shown in Figure 9 (for natural waters only).
14 Based on (EC, 2000)
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Fig. 9: The relationships between the quality elements and the ecological status for natural waters (EC, 2005).
The major part of key aspects related to the goal setting, monitoring and determining the ecological state can be found in Annex V of the WFD. It covers aspects like above mentioned quality elements for the classification of ecological statuses, normative definitions of ecological status classifications, monitoring of ecological status and chemical status for surface waters and classification and presentation of ecological statuses. Especially this last section provides crucial information for our specific purpose. It defines the concept to evaluate the ecological status (EC, 2000):
“In order to ensure comparability of such monitoring systems, the results of the systems operated by each Member State shall be expressed as ecological quality ratios for the purposes of classification of ecological status. These ratios shall represent the relationship between the values of the biological parameters observed for a given body of surface water and the values for these parameters in the reference conditions applicable to that body. The ratio shall be expressed as a numerical value between zero and one, with high ecological status represented by values close to one and bad ecological status by values close to zero.”
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Biological quality elements should thus be monitored and will lead to an EQR expression (ratios derived from observed values and reference values).
The reference state as described in Annex V.1.2 requires all quality elements to be normal and the absence of disruption. This implies that it should be equal to the situation with no human interference at all or to the conditions of a minimal anthropogenic impact. This means for example:
Natural processes take place within the space required All natural habitats are represented Rivers are not dammed Substances are not restricting the biological status (STOWA, 2007).
As can be found in the European guidance document (REFCOND Guidance, 2003), the reference level is equal to the high status.
Presence of the above-described pure reference condition is very rare and even unlikely to be found in areas that are highly populated like Flanders is. The intensive use of agrarian land, the omnipresence of all kinds of industry and polluting discharges of urban wastewater place a load on the environment and the quality of water. This means that reference statuses in these kinds of conditions cannot be reliably described based on sampling data. Hence, the alternative method to determine type-specific reference values used in Flanders is one based on expert judgment (Gabriels, Lock, De Pauw, Goethals, 2009). This is allowed by the WFD (EU, 2000; REFCOND Guidance, 2003).
3.2.2 Goal setting and the related EQR classes per water type
As mentioned before, a water body is the smallest unit of detail considered. Water bodies are of a certain type; they are either natural or non-natural. Within the class of natural waters, a further distinction is made between lakes, rivers, coastal and transitional waters. Within the class of non-natural waters, water can be either heavily modified or artificial. Water is defined as heavily modified if the ‘good water status’ is not realizable because of certain hydromorphological interventions. Water that is only there because of human interventions is called artificial water. Logically, for each different category, different references and related classes are applied (
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3.2.2.1 Natural waters
For natural waters, the EQR can then be categorized into one of the five classes with accompanying color codes (also represented in the WFD explorer): high/good/moderate/poor/bad status (Figure 10).
Reference conditions - High
Good
Moderate
Poor
Bad
Fig. 10 : The 5 classes for natural water and accompanying color codes (STOWA, 2006).
The 2015 target (GES– Good Ecological State) lies rather close to the reference level (Figure 11). The different statuses (current – target – reference) and the gap that should be closed by restoration measures are described in Figure 11.
Fig. 11: Goal determining method for natural waters according to the WFD-practices (MNP, 2006).
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3.2.2.2 Heavily modified waters
For heavily modified waters, the Maximum Ecological Potential 15 is the highest possible level (EQR equal to 1). From the MEP, the Good Ecological Potential is derived. This is considered as the norm. In contrast to the classification of natural waters, there are only four categories (Figure 12).
Maximum Ecological Potential MEP Good Good Ecological Potential GEP Moderate
Poor
Bad
Fig. 12 : The 4 classes for heavily modified waters with accompanying color codes (STOWA, 2006).
The ecological 2015 target for heavily modified and artificial water is derived from the natural water type that most resembles to it. The difference with the goal setting procedure for natural waters (Figure 11, 3.2.2.1) is the MEP and GEP determination. There are three steps involved in this process. First of all (Figure 13, step 1), the ecological effects from physical infrastructure can be subtracted. Also in this step, the effects from related correcting measures (such as fish migration passages) are added again afterwards. This results in the Maximum Ecological potential. The second step is to calculate the Good Ecological Potential. This is namely only a minor deviation from the MEP (as a consequence of human activities). The difference between the MEP and the GEP is what should be managed. Thirdly, a phasing and lowering process can be implemented (Figure 13, step 3). Sometimes, based on socio-economical reasons, it is possible to delay the deadline until two further six-year cycles of planning and implementations of measures (until 2021 or 2027) or settle with less ambitious goals. This is the so called ‘exemption’.
All above steps are also described in the EU Guidance on establishment of the intercalibration network and the process on the intercalibration exercise (EC, 2003).
15 "the values of the relevant biological quality elements reflect, as far as possible, those associated with the closest comparable surface water body type, given the physical conditions which result from the artificial or heavily modified characteristics of the water body”(EC, 2000 - WFD Annex V No. 1.2.5).
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Fig. 13: Goal determination according to the WFD method for heavily modified waters (MNP, 2006).
3.2.3 Common implementation strategy and the intercalibration exercise
With regard to the common implementation strategy (cf. section 1.2), different working groups consisting of technical experts and researchers from the European Union member states, candidate countries and specialized organizations like the European Environment Agency were formed. In the context of this paper’s goal setting, working group 2.5 is especially important. This group established the intercalibration process of the surface water ecological quality assessment systems as required by the WFD. As described in section 3.2.1, determining the EQR requires the monitoring of biological quality elements (listed in Annex 5 of the WFD). For rivers and lakes, these biological quality elements are phytoplankton, phytobenthos, macro-invertebrates and fish. Intercalibration of individual parameters is difficult because different Member States are permitted to uses different parameters and methods to measure a given biological quality element (EC, 2008).
For example, in Belgium (Flanders), the Multimetric Macroinvertebrate Index Flanders (MMIF) is used to determine the Biological Quality Element ‘Benthic invertebrate fauna’ (also referred to as macroinvertebrates). This is an index that was developed based on the already existing Belgian Biotic Index (BBI) (De Pauw & Vanhooren, 1983). From 1989 on, the Flemish Environment Agency has applied this method to assess river water quality. It has proven to be a robust and reliable method capable of adequately indicating the quality of river water and habitats (Gabriels et al, 2009). But to comply with the WFD requirements, it had to be slightly adapted. It so happens that some difficulties hindered the application of the existing BBI method. Technical shortcomings such as the lack of usability for stagnant waters, the weakness regarding the degree that the tool is type-specific and the missing of the
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‘taxonomic abundance’ parameter has to be resolved (Gabriels et al., 2009). This resulted in the Multimetric Macroinvertebrate Index Flanders (MMIF). This new method is now used as the standard method to determine the status of macroinvertebrates in all rivers and lakes in Flanders. Originally, the required 5 EQR classes were equally sized for all member states. But, after the European intercalibration exercise, the class boundaries were adapted (see Table 2 and Table 3).
To effectively perform intercalibration between all countries subjected to the WFD, the biological quality elements themselves should thus be the level for intercalibration. The results of above intercalibration exercise will then determine the numerical (EQR) values for the high-good and the good- moderate boundaries in each Member State’s classification system. Values for the other two class boundaries (moderate-poor, poor-bad) are established by the Member States themselves (EC, 2008). Obviously, the good-moderate boundary is the most important one because of the ‘good water status’ requirement.
In Flanders (Belgium), the MMIF method for rivers has demonstrated to be well in accordance with the European intercalibration method (CB-GIG, 2008; Gabriels et al., 2009). It was officially recognized as the Flemish method for the assessment of the biological quality element ‘Benthic invertebrate fauna’ and used in the European intercalibration exercise.
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3.3 Final goal for the Zwalm river basin per water type
The starting point of integrated water management is the goal of reaching a good ecological status. This means a status that is as close as possible to the reference or ‘natural’ state taking into account functional constraints. Functional constraints are restrictions in connection with policy fields like land use planning (industry, agriculture …) and the environmental policy. The problem is that these needs are only connected to the river indirectly. Namely, water courses that are not navigable do not have any direct function defined on the governmental land use plans, only the areas that contain them do. For the valley of the Zwalm river itself specifically, most sections are designated as green areas (nature reserve, park area …). The areas surrounding smaller adjacent water courses are mostly agrarian, although still often of landscape or ecological value (Belconsulting, 2003).
Generally spoken, areas that have an environmental function on the land use plans should approximate the desired undistorted state. These ‘natural waters’ will be discussed in section 3.3.1. Nevertheless, the requirements for areas that have other functions, like agriculture or living areas, are less stringent. The related heavily modified waters are logically less capable to reach this natural state. This implies different goals and measures. The needs and stakes of different partners were taken into account via the involvement and consultation in the different steps of the process of drawing up the river basin plans and water policy. Some types of influences in the Zwalm river basin and the resulting EQR goal will be discussed in section 3.3.2.
After having established the different possible water quality categories section 3.2.2 for both natural and heavily modified water types, and having discussed the basis for the actual boundary determination (namely the intercalibration exercise), it is time to finally look at the precise goal value for Flanders and more specifically for the Zwalm river basin.
3.3.1 Natural waters
The exact water types (R-C1 and R-C4) that have been intercalibrated is represented Table 2. In Table 3, the results of the intercalibration exercise can than be found. Logically, only aspects relevant for our case study (area) are listed.
Only looking at the biological quality element ‘benthic invertebrate fauna’, and taking into account that the WFD requires a ‘good status’ (above the good-moderate boundary) as the norm, the standard that should be taken into account is 0.70. In words, this is “The values of the biological quality elements for the surface water body type show low levels of distortion resulting from human activity, but deviate
52 only slightly from those normally associated with the surface water body type under undisturbed conditions” (Annex V.1.2) (EC, 2000).
Table 2: Intercalibrated water body types and their characteristics for Belgium (Flanders). (Adapted from EC, 2008).
Table 3: Intercalibrated EQR norms for Belgium (Flanders). (Adapted from EC, 2008).
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3.3.2 Heavily modified waters
When thinking of water and water management, several possible functions other than ecology and related stakeholders can be defined. These functions are at the basis of assigning a ‘heavily modified’ status to certain water bodies because they sometimes require adaptations to water courses. A well- known example is the straightening of certain river parts. Another example is the hardening of certain areas to allow housing but simultaneously causing floods. Before determining the goal value for these heavily modified waters, it is valuable to briefly look into these stakeholders.
3.3.2.1 Different stakeholders in the Zwalm river basin
First of all there is the agrarian sector (Belconsulting, 2003; Mouton et al., 2009; Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 B). This sector, but also other industries that are highly dependent on water and simultaneously highly competitive, is subject to a high level of potential conflict between their needs and the ecological needs. The economic viability in these sectors is endangered and already depending on subsidies. Imposing too strict regulations and heavy financial burdens could jeopardize their survival.
Secondly, t he region of the Zwalm river is known for its beautiful landscapes. It is characterized by green valleys, forested hills and old mills. It is therefore very popular for recreation and tourism purposes. The development of these functions is very important. If done well, it can simultaneously improve the ecological role and the agricultural task. It can be accomplished by a range of measures like the evasion of ribbon development to guard the visual pollution, the damming of erosion and the restoration of small landscape elements (Belconsulting, 2003). Increasing the value of positive experiences related to water courses adds to the public support for the sustainable water policy. Several initiatives enhance this like targeted actions for schools and youth movements (Vlaamse Regering, 2002).
Lastly, it important to bear in mind the influence of the p opulation in certain regions. Rivers and other water streams are often influenced and modified by humans. In the Zwalm river basin, floods originating from unnavigable watercourses are regularly the case. Some major floodings occurred in August 1996, September 1992, December 1999 and January-February 2002. Rising water set buildings, banks and roads under water (Belconsulting, 2003). Logically, humans try to avoid these negative consequences by attempting to control the water course behavior. By actions like damming, river straightening and passage broadening they tried to influence the water to meet their needs of for example flood control. This implies a serious distortion in the natural dynamics of the water stream and thus the ecology in the surrounding valley. In addition, the combination of multiple measures often leads to unwanted and unanticipated effects like floods in further surroundings downstream of the same stream. The flood danger is thus only shifted to other areas. In the last few years, the policy
54 starting points has shifted toward a more integrated approach. The so-called ‘water household’ is the part of that integrated approach that is focused on the quantitative aspects of water management. It sees floods as a natural phenomenon. By respecting the natural behavior of a water course, many problems can be prevented. Floods themselves are namely often the consequence of human interventions like forcing the water stream into a certain direction. It is better to accept it and work with nature instead of against it. For example, although not easy in densely populated areas like Flanders, it is easier to avoid building in natural flood areas than afterwards avoiding floods in that area (Ecorem- Haecon, 2002).
3.3.2.2 The heavily modified areas and their tailored goal
The parts of the Zwalm river basin subject to above exceptional circumstances are indicated on the map hereunder (Figure 14), based on indications given by Mr. Gabriels (VMM, oral communication). They all belong to the Zwalm river (indicated in the WFD-Explorer as the Zwalm_5, Zwalm_6, Zwalm_7, Zwalm_8, Zwalm_9, Zwalm_10 water bodies).
Fig. 14: Part of the Zwalm river basin that was judged to be heavily modified water.
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The process of determining the goals for the part of the Zwalm river basin that was judged as heavily modified (cf. Figure 13) is still ongoing, but some provisional classification values are already available. For now, the goal is set to 0.65 (this is the lower bound of the best GEP class). This is lower than the goal for natural waters because of the presence of weir constructions in some areas. They are necessary to prevent floods in these relatively densely populated areas (> 10% housing), but make it more difficult to reach an acceptable ecological status. The other boundaries are 0.3 (bad-insufficient), 0.45 (insufficient- moderate), 0.65 (moderate, GEP) and the MEP is equal to the upper limit 1. Because the exact areas that should be subject to these tailored values are not precisely defined up till now, they are not taken into account in our case study.
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4 Actions and restoration plans
After having determined problems and problem areas in chapter 3, and having set the goal in chapter 4, the next logical step is to determine the restoration options to reach that goal and solve the problems. Both in literature and in the governmental policy plans (e.g. Belconsulting, 2006; Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005A), possible ways to improve the status of the water system are thoroughly described. In the first section of this chapter, some general findings regarding river restoration are dealt with. Next, a number of general factors that influence the action-taking process will be pictured. After, some more specific actions will be discussed similarly to the action plan that is part of the Zwalm river partial basin plan.
4.1 What is a successful restoration?
The opportunity to assess the effectiveness of different possible actions beforehand can be of great value when dealing with a limited time frame or budget. It should result in a priority list of the different options to be executed. The success of a restoration project can be judged in multiple ways. Ranking can be based on their weight across a number of possible important aspects like cost-effectiveness, response time, probability and variability of success and the longevity of the action (Roni et al., 2002). Other, broader, goals can be the degree of stakeholder satisfaction, protection of historically important infrastructure, recreational opportunity provision, and importantly, the degree of ecological success (Meyer, O’Donnel, Pagano, Sudduth, 2005; Palmer et al., 2005). Because one of the main objectives of the Water Framework Directive is to reach a ‘good’ ecological surface water quality by the year 2015, it is justified to state that this ecological success rate will be of dominant importance. However, this does not imply that the other objectives are to be neglected. To the contrary, the interests of various groups should be balanced at all times. Only, this shouldn’t jeopardize the fulfilment of the ecological goals (Meyer et al., 2005).
According to Palmer et al. (2005), there are five criteria for ecological success.
First, a guiding image, which is a dynamic ecological endpoint should be identified a priori and uses as a focus point. The restoration goals should be to reach the best ecologically state possible at the moment and for the specific region. Based on historical information, reference sites, the use of analytical
57 empirical models, stream classification systems and common sense, this guiding image can be sketched out.
Second, the ecosystem should be measurably improved. This means that physicochemical and biological components should come closer to the target values. The progress can depend both on non-ecological (like stakeholder constraints) and ecological context.
Third, the degree to which the ecosystem is more self-sustaining compared to the situation before the restoration actions is also important. As a result of temporal variability in both natural and human factors ecosystems are exposed to varying conditions. If a river is a resilient self-sustainable system, it can rapidly recover from and adapt to these changes with natural processes. Like that, it will be less needed to continuously manage and maintain them.
Fourth, the restoration action should not entail irreparable harm. This denotes that a restoration intervention must minimize the long-term impact. It should also respect other ongoing restoration activities in the neighborhood.
Last, the restoration project must be clearly defined in terms of objectives and results. This assessment must be made publicly available. This is necessary in the road to ecological success. It will contribute to reduced future assessment efforts since the effectiveness of certain measures in certain circumstances will become more and more clear. This can be compared to the economical term ‘learning effect’ which stipulates the reduced effort per unit of output needed as the cumulative input increases. This is further enhanced by the use of a standardized protocol. Achievement of the goals is not a prerequisite to achieve this benefit.
To determine of a project will be or was successful, certain indicators should be evaluated against goals. The question hereby is what indicators should be applied. This will vary from project to project and will be determined by the ecological goal setting (Meyer et al., 2005). This goal setting can be done in two ways; approach a desired condition or move away from an unwanted state (Palmer, 2005). In this case, the ecological goal setting is performed in section 3. The indicator that will be used is the EQR (Ecological Quality Ratio), based on the Belgian MMIF method. It should be at least 0.7 for natural waters and 0.65 for heavily modified waters (cf. chapter 3).
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4.2 General factors that influence the action-taking process
4.2.1 The natural water course
In the last decade, water management has moved from a rather fragmented approach to a more integrated method. All elements from circumstances in the entire river basin are taken into account. This is the so called river basin system approach. As previously mentioned, the European Water Framework Directive states that all surface waters should reach a good ecological status by 2015. This good ecological state means that values for all biological quality elements should only diverge slightly from the reference state (cf. chapter 3). Deviations from the reference state are mostly caused by human interference actions so should be prevented or restored as close as possible to the original state (EC, 2000). In the reference condition, the characteristics of a natural water course and its valley (with elements like the slope, meandering …) and the associated processes (floods, erosion …) are balanced. This thus means that in order to reach an ecologically optimal status, the most efficient option that has the best cost-effect potential is the tactic of trying to revaluate the natural attributes (Belconsulting, 2003). Of course, some measures like changing the area function are not realizable on short term. Furthermore, besides the main ecological goal, other needs and stakes should always be taken into account. These could lead to exemptions based on the so called ‘disproportionate costs’ (section 1.2).
4.2.2 Economical aspects
Another important aspect in the planning and implementation process of the WFD is the consideration of several economic aspects. Some examples in this context are the cost effectiveness of measure programmes (Article 11 and Annex III of the WFD) and the possibility to acquire exemptions in case of disproportionate costs. Two types of cost have to be taken into account. Firstly, there are some direct financial costs (both onetime investment costs and ongoing maintenance costs) linked with the implementations of a certain combination of actions. These costs are called the hard costs or the internal costs.
What’s more, wherever possible, some secondary economic and social effects (also often called social costs or external costs) should be included in the evaluation of the costs and benefits of the restoration options. According to Stemplewski et al. (2008), this second type of cost relates to the WFD concept of disproportionality. Namely, in a wider sense, disproportionate costs could also be seen in the context of insufficient stakeholder acceptability. This means that when selecting and choosing restoration scenarios, not only the technical feasibility (relative favorableness) should be allowed for, but also the degree of compliance with stakeholders’ financial carrying capacity and the polluter-pays-principle
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(absolute favorableness). If all technical feasible options would presume disproportionate costs, environmental goals should be adjusted accordingly until reaching full compliance with these goals becomes possible without incurring disproportionate costs. Of course, the final decision is political. It is thus possible that the policy makers will prefer a selection of measures that financially costs more than an alternative but is socio-economically more favorable. It all depends on the judgment of policy makers of what is considered as a fair burden for the stakeholders (Stemplewski et al., 2008).
4.2.3 Uncertainty
The planning process of restoration options and scenarios goes together with various sources of uncertainty. First of all, it is possible that a lack of sufficient and dependable quantitative information about the river basin or water body characteristics stands in the way of having a fully reliable analysis and conclusion. This is certainly the case for the quantification of most of the socio-economic aspects of measures. Secondly, also a clear understanding of the processes and interdependencies in river systems is necessary to obtain a trustworthy assessment and simulation study.
In order to mitigate these uncertainties, several strategies are possible. Some often used tactics are the introduction of spectrums of values and the use of scenarios together with sensitivity analysis. It is also favorable to increase the methodological effort and to put more effort in collecting additional data (Stemplewski et al., 2008).
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4.3 Action plan for the Zwalm river basin
Following from the goal note discussed in chapter 2, an action plan was drawn up (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 A). Actions cover a continuum from very local to very general. These actions can make use of several possible instruments and provisions. These will be concisely discussed in section 4.2.1. In section 4.2.2, the importance of sensitization, coordination and collaboration is briefly covered. Finally in section 4.2.3 the actions are summed up. Logically, the whole of this section is based on the Zwalm River Basin Action Plan (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 A). Like that, the structure of the action plan itself is roughly maintained.
4.3.1 Instruments and provisions
First of all, both communities and the province of East Flanders can utilize different kinds of subsidiaries. From the Flemish government, some subsidiaries are available on the basis the collaboration agreement ‘Environments as step stone to sustainable development’. This a voluntary agreement in which communities or provinces agree to the execution of some tasks. In exchange for this, the Flemish government is willing to provide both financial and administrative support. Furthermore, there are also Flemish subsidiaries accessible for projects related to community sewage systems, SWWTs and protecting landscapes. Lastly, they can apply for subsidiaries in connection with Interreg III project of the European Commission. The Interreg III initiative aims to enhance the interregional collaboration both within and across the borders of the European Union (
Secondly, also private persons are able to apply for subsidiaries. These can be provided by their community. This is then a transfer for the ‘Environment as step stone to sustainable development’ agreement. When someone wants to engage in investments linked to individual waste water treatment infrastructure, the catchment of heaven water or green roofs, several subsidiary options are available. For farmers particularly, there are specific agreements: the agreement of administration (in exchange for the execution of certain tasks; like the planting of a hedge, a yearly compensation is received) and for sustainable agriculture.
4.3.2 Sensitization, coordination and collaboration
Sensitization is an essential element in the fulfilment of water management plans. It creates goodwill and therefore enhances the chances of success. Both locally and on basin level, extensive information should be provided to all people interested and affected. Sensitization entails several choices: what is
61 the optimal degree of participation (inform, consult or participate?), which target groups have to be reached and what timing and what means of communication are appropriate?
Coordination and collaboration should be realized through the water boards. These water boards augment the partial basin level. More info about water boards can be found in section 1.2.
4.3.3 Actions
Actions were subdivided in five categories: Sensitization & information, general actions, location specific actions, actions related to the decree of Integrated Water Policy and Flemish Government recommendations. All actions are organized in fiches expressing a step plan, priority, timing, budget…
An important purpose of this research is to test possible restoration actions in a software tool. However, as will become clear in chapter 5, most of these action possibilities will proof to be infeasible to be implemented by the WFD-Explorer because they are simply not in the tool’s predefined measure list. Therefore, we will limit ourselves to one important example of a quantifiable action: the general actions outlined for track 2. The details of all actions can be found in the partial basin plan for the Zwalm river (Waterschap Bovenschelde Zuid, 2005 A).
The general actions for track 2 are:
The evaluation and approval of area plans; development of a community-based individual wastewater treatment policy; the realization of concrete sewerage projects; the elaboration of a time planning of the sewerage projects based on area plans.
Waste water should be treated before re-entering the surface waters. This can be done in 2 ways. Firstly, after being collected in sewer systems, via a communal WWTP. Secondly, via an IWWTP. The applied method depends on the location of the area. In Flanders, this can be derived from ‘area plans’ (also cf. chapter 2). Inhabitants can look up in which type of area they are living (subject to communal treatment or individual treatment). These plans were drawn up by a cooperation between the VMM (Flemish Environment Agency) and the communities in the period of 2006-2008. The related measures that are necessary per zone can be found online (
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A plan can contain four types of areas:
A central area: already connected to a WWTP (orange shaded); an optimized external area: recently connected to a WWTP (green shaded); an external area to be collectively optimized: where connection will be realized (green); an external area to be individually optimized: where waste water shall be individually treated by an IWWTP (red).
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5 WFD-Explorer implementation
This chapter describes the case study implementation of the Zwalm river basin in the WFD-Explorer tool. First of all, the knowledge rules that apply to this partial basin will be presented. Next, some preliminary selected measures and possible areas to apply them to are listed and described. If confronted with difficulties or objections, some more details are provided. Thirdly, the starting point (initial situation) is explained. Finally, the actual software implementation test is step-by-step ran through.
For the purpose of this research we build on the data and model of the Zwalm river basin previously used by Mouton et al. (2009). After having performed some updates, supplementations and modifications that were necessary for the most recent version of the software program, these data proved to be still applicable. Namely, the situation in the Zwalm river basin has little changed over the recent years (oral conversation Prof Goethals, D. Malfroid). In this dataset, the Zwalm river basin consists of 29 different water bodies (based on the digital elevation model of Flanders). Water bodies are then streams containing water of catchments larger than 2 km², while two confluent water bodies always formed a third water body when joined (Mouton et al., 2009).
5.1 WFD-Explorer knowledge rules that apply to the Zwalm river basin
Before being able to run a simulation exercise in the WFD-Explorer, it is certainly useful to describe the knowledge rules that are behind the software and that will be draw in our case study.
5.1.1 Macrofauna
Macrofauna rules are formulated generally for all river types. The parameters that are taken into account to determine the Macrofauna score are both physical (river sinuosity and flow velocity) and chemical (total phosphorus and Biological Oxygen Demand, BOD 5). Some other important parameters like infrastructural obstacles and the extent of bank overgrowth are not considered because they are not readily quantifiable. However, they are still indirectly expressed via the meandering (sinuosity) parameter.
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Only factors listed in Table 4 are thus Macrofauna steering variables. For each of these steering variables, a formula that calculates the maximum attainable EQR (Ecological Quality Ratio) is given in Table 4. All EQR-scores are between 0 and 1 (in concordance with the official norms, cf. chapter 3). The final EQR-score is chosen to be the minimum of these partial EQR-scores because the lowest ratio will be the limiting factor:
EQR final = min (EQR max,v , EQR max,s , EQR max,BOD ,
EQR max,P
where EQR final is the final EQR of the water body i, and EQR max,v , EQR max,s , EQR max,BOD and EQR max,P are the maximum EQRs obtained from the respective flow velocity, sinuosity, BOD and total P value of the water body i.
When looking for effective restoration options, this limiting parameter should thus be the center of attention (Leven met Water, 2007).
Table 4: Knowledge rules for the EQR-calculation (Macrofauna – R6) (Van der Most et al., 2006).
5.1.2 Fish
The absolute quantity and relative composition of fish species is mainly determined by polluting discharges together with their related pattern (influenced by their flow rate), and the geomorphology 16 of the water body area. This because of the fact that these factors establish important steering variables like substrates, flow and depth. Also the degree of connectivity between the different water bodies has an influence because of its importance for the fish migration processes.
STOWA (2007) started with defining some conceptual measures for fish. These measures were the base for drawing up the knowledge rules of the WFD-Explorer. There are two main partial measure categories: ‘abundance’ (FishAbun) and ‘species composition’ (FishSpec). Logically, calculation rules are based on
16 “Geomorphology (or morphology) is the science that studies the landforms and the processes that shape(d) them” (
65 habitat demands (only depth and flow, transformed into the necessary steering variables classes) of the indicator species that are typical for certain water body types. Unfortunately, the limited availability of scientific researched knowledge rules for fish restrained the amount of indicator species suitable for implementation in the WFD-Explorer.
Next to the habitat related factors, some anthropogenic elements are taken into account. As it happens, the extent of anthropogenic interference determines both the habitat quality and the connectivity between water bodies. This brings a correction factor for above calculated habitat quality along. The only anthropogenic factor taken into account in the current knowledge rules is the number of non- passable infrastructure. Namely, this kind of infrastructure can seriously hinder the development of migrating fish species.
Concretely, the knowledge rules depend on the water body type. In the Zwalm river basin, all water bodies are assumed to be of the ‘R6’ type (slowly streaming small river on sand/clay), except for the Sassegembeek that is defined as ‘R4’ (permanent slowly streaming upper water course on sand). Consequently, for this water body other calculation rules and composing elements have to be applied.
For the R6 water type (all other water bodies), the formulas are the following (Van der Most et al., 2006):
Partial scores :
FishAbun = Mean [ Mean ( FishAbun_RG, FishAbun_BV ), FishAbun_WI, FishAbun_SK ];
FishSpec = Mean ( FishSpec_BE, FishSpec_RG, FishSpec_BP, FishSpec_SE, FishSpec_WI, FishSpec_SK, FishSpec_BV );
Final score :
Fish = Mean ( FishAbun, FishSpec ).
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For the Sassegembeek water body (R4 type) the formulas are:
Partial scores:
FishAbun = Mean ( FishAbun_BE, FishAbun_BP );
FishSpec = Mean (FishSpec_BE, FishSpec_RG, FishSpec_BP );
Final score:
Fish = Mean ( FishAbun, FishSpec ).
The ‘X’ in FishAbun_X or FishSpec_X stands for a specific fish species. More details about them can be found on
Because in the modelling phase of a WFD-Explorer project the morphology (cross-section data) of the water body are inputted in the database, the according velocity (D1 up to and including D7) and depth (V1 up to and including V7) classes can be determined by the software. In turn, this information can clarify the extent of suitability for some indicator species and thus the ecological quality for fish. In other words, the presence of indicator species is determined for every water body by firstly considering its depth and velocity class coverage. Next, this coverage is compared to standards of the relevant indicator species.
All restoration measures that have an impact of either depth or flow or non-passable infrastructure can thus possibly influence the Fish score. However, the exact calculation of the score falls beyond the scope of this research. Nevertheless, Figure 15 describes an example of the effect of a restoration measure that affected the flow velocity and depth and thus the Fish score. It should clarify the importance of this score and the actions intervening with it for the ecological quality of a water body. If implementing a restoration measure that affects both the diversity of the depth and velocity present, it will become possible for more indicator species to be present in the water body. This will affect the Fish score and possible the overall Ecological Quality Ratio.
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Fig. 15: An example of the effect of restoration actions on the Fish score (and EQR) (Leven met Water, 2007).
As will be discussed in more detail later on, it is also possible to affect the Fish score by implementing a totally different approach, namely top-down FishAbun and FishSpec scores manipulation (cf. section 5.2.7).
5.1.3 Final Ecological Quality Ratio calculation
The final Ecological Quality Ratio is then calculated as follows (Van der Most et al., 2006):
EQR = Min (FISH, MACROFAUNA, MACROFYTES, FYTOPLANKTON).
Because in our case study only enough data is provided to determine the FISH and MACROFAUNA score, this becomes:
EQR = Min (FISH, MACROFAUNA).
It is clear that the limiting score (i.e. either Fish or Macrofauna) will determine the final EQR. Also here, for the action selection process, it is thus only useful to select measures that affect the limiting score in order to improve the Ecological Quality Ratio.
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5.2 Selection of measures and first exploration of possible measure-sensitive areas
Based on an interview with Mr. Diederik Malfroid (partial basin coordinator Upper Scheldt) and on the advice of Professor Goethals, some measures out of the WFD-Explorer predefined list, sometimes together with some possible water bod(y)(ies) to apply them to, were selected. This was primarily done without any further consideration of both the possibility and practicability of implementing them in the software tool.
However, when looking closer to some measures a first implementation barrier was already encountered. Unfortunately, as will be more thoroughly discussed in the further course of this section and will become more clear in next sections of this chapter (cf. 5.3 and 5.4), some measures proved to be not feasible or useful for the WFD-Explorer tool. This was mainly the case because of data configuration requirements or theoretical calculation methods. If confronted with a method that turns out to be not implementable in the real simulation exercise, or a measure that has to be reviewed and adapted for WFD-Explorer use, more details will be provided in the relevant sections.
Secondly, it is also important to always keep in mind that some measures are not realizable in practice. This can have different reasons, from a lack of technical capabilities to financial restrictions. The following list of possible measures to implement will thus always be restricted by practical relevance. The resulting software simulation will thus mainly serve as a theoretical exercise.
5.2.1 Manure policy
5.2.1.1 Possible target areas and original strategy
In the explorative phase, some water bodies were selected after consultation with experts in the field (Prof. Goethals and Mr. Malfroid). At that time, is seemed right to implement the manure policy simulation both generally and for the Krombeek, Peerdestokbeek_O and Peerdestokbeek_A water body. These last water bodies were selected because of the fact that this area specifically has to deal with major pollution caused by manure. On the other hand, the generic implementation of the manure policy was intended to be carried out to see the effects of an overall (national) strategy.
Unfortunately, the manure policy as defined above has been found to be not directly applicable because of two main causes. Both causes are related to the WFD-Explorer software that needs to be used.
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5.2.1.2 Practical objections and solution
First of all, measure number 4 and 5 - Reduction manure gift (agricultural land) and Change of function / land use - are not (yet) elaborated in the most recent version of the WFD-Explorer. Although already defined, they are thus not (yet) implementable in a simulation exercise.
Next, for the remaining measures related to manure policy (National manure policy, extra reduction, Buffer strips …), some data are tailored to Dutch applications. For Belgian projects, some necessary information and outcomes will always be lacking. Namely, they are based on so-called STONE tables and models. The STONE data consist of the existing average phosphate and nitrogen emissions (both in kg as in kg/are) on the surface waters per partial basin in the Netherlands and their distribution in percentiles (10-20-80-90) within each partial basin. These emission registration databases are generated by a cooperative modelling exercise (Alterra,
Luckily, there seems to exist something to partially fall back on in situations like our Belgian case study. Namely, it is possible to include an estimation of manure wash out by providing a specific pollution source type: AGRI (agricultural). Via a (non-official) measurement definition (49), this type of source can then be tackled. It is thus an indirect way to still implement some kind of manure policy measures. One can determine the fraction and target (N or P) of reduction in the intervention definition.
Manure policy and related pollution reduction will have an effect on the amount of N and/or P. As described in section 5.1, the latter can have an effect on the ecological score target ‘Macrofauna’.
5.2.1.3 Theoretical objection and solution
Theoretically however, it is clear that the simulation of a realization of all manure policy goals (this is a general reduction of 75% Phosphorus discharge, cf. 5.4.2.1) will have no effect if in none of the water bodies the EQR max,P is the limiting factor for the Macrofauna score. The only result of a first simulation
70 try-out was therefore an improvement of the partial EQR max,P. Consequently, no improvement in the either the Macrofauna score or the final EQR could be found.
The result of the general implementation strategy of this measure for all water bodies is illustrated in Figure 16. Figure 16 (a) clearly shows a relative total phosphorus improvement, but this is not translated into an improvement of the total EQR score mapped in Figure 16 (b) if compared with Figure 19 (starting point situation.
It is evident that also for the selective implementation (Krombeek, Peerdestokbeek_O and
Peerdestokbeek_A) the same conclusions can be drawn because the EQR max,P is not the limiting factor (yet).
Fig. 16: The impact of a 75% reduction of phosphorus sources on the total phosphorus quantity and the total EQR score. The relative total phosphorus is calculated by the following formula: Relative phosphorus = (after implementing discharge decrease - before discharge decrease) / before) * 100%.
5.2.1.4 Conclusion
As became clear out of above sections, the original approach needs to be modified and redefined. Manure policy will only be implementable via one measure (general reduction in total phosphorus). Furthermore, instead of applying this measure to the predefined areas, a more selective approach seems appropriate. Namely, this action will only be useful if the water body in question is limited by the
EQR max,P .
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5.2.2 Infrastructure - Ecological embankments
Under the measure type ‘infrastructure’, measure 9 (Ecological embankments) was first selected. It was agreed upon that this measure could be helpful in the whole river basin, thus no specific water bodies were preselected. This is thus already in line with the ‘limiting factor approach’: Only after first having looked for possible target areas, this measure is put on the implementation list. This measure targets at increasing the differentiation in habitats for both plants and animals. Too often, the water course banks are steep and straight. By implementing this measure, the banks are modified towards a more natural situation which in turn enhances the differentiation of habitats for both plants and animals.
Behind the scenes, some knowledge rules intervene with the cross-section of the selected water body. Another profile type of cross-section will be opted for (type 2 - natural profile - instead of the original profile type), and both the depth and the slope of this cross-section can be adapted. By interfering with the profile type, the variables that are affected are depth, flow velocity and ecology. Because flow velocity is one of the four parameters influencing the Macrofauna score measure, this action should have an effect on it. Of course, this will only be the case if the EQR max,v is the limiting factor (cf. Section 5.1). In the MS Access database intervention definition table, this new desired natural profile type for the cross-section has to be defined by specifying its characteristics like width, depth and slope. The water body under consideration will then be totally or partially changed to profile type 2 (natural profile with bank vegetation) by defining the percentage of the originally non-natural profile types that has to be transformed into a natural profile (or into an increase in natural profile if not the whole water body is of type 1).
5.2.3 Infrastructure - Brook reconstruction / meandering
This measure also intervenes with the cross-section‘s profile of one or more water bodies. According to project-specific preferences, the selected water body can be totally or partially altered to profile type 3 (natural profile with bank vegetation and deep outside bend/meander and modification of sinuosity). Again, this measure affects the depth and flow velocity parameter via a knowledge rule. But, compared to measure 9, also the sinuosity parameter is affected. So, if either the EQR max,s or the EQR max,v is the limiting factor, the Macrofauna score element will be changed. Also in this case, the new natural profile type for the cross-section has to be defined by specifying attributes including width, depth and the new sinuosity for the different parts of the water body. This measure can thus be equated with measure 9 except for the extra intervention on the sinuosity. This sinuosity enhances the winding character of the water course. This brings more differentiation in water level and flow velocity along, which is considered to be a good thing for the ecological quality. Furthermore, by remeandering actions, the actual length of the water course increases together with an (optional) increase in roughness. All of this decelerates the
72 drainage process, which can have beneficial effects on the ecology. The possible target areas are also selected like measure 9 (cf. 5.2.2).
5.2.4 Infrastructure - Dredging
5.2.4.1 Possible target areas
In this case study, dredging measures were chosen to be implemented in areas just before a major weir. This because these structures are known for the accretion they cause. Namely, weirs often bring about obstruction of sludge. In Figure 17, the six most important weirs are located. The related water bodies are then Zwalm_9, Zwalm_8, Zwalm_6, Zwalm_4 and Peerdestokbeek_A. Logically, the effect of a dredging measure will only be simulated on these water bodies.
Fig. 17: The location of the six most important weirs in the Zwalm river basin.
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5.2.4.2 Pre-testing the effects of dredging – WFD-Explorer consequences
Dredging should reduce the pollution coming from diffuse sources. In the WFD-Explorer, this type of source is equalized to a source that discharges into water basins, in contrast with a point source that discharges directly into the water body. The steering variables affected by it are flow velocity, depth, substances and substrate. For a focus on Macrofauna, only flow velocity is of importance, and even then only if it is the limiting factor of the water body under consideration.
By dredging, the profile of the cross-section that was originally in place is restored and some soil pollution can be cleared away. This decreases the negative impact of accretion consequences (like there are the reduction of the depth of the water course, the accumulation of pollutants and a different environment for plants and animals). Practically, dredging is carried out by increasing the depth of the water course.
5.2.4.3 Dredging in practice
After running several explorative testing rounds, following temporal conclusions related to this activity and the selected water bodies could be drawn:
If positive, the influence of the dredging activity is only visible on the Fish score; only for the Zwalm_9 and Zwalm_8 water body these positive effects were noticed; the definition of the extra depth that needs to be reached through dredging is crucial: too little has no effect, too much has a negative (or less positive) impact.
Some practical implications can be derived out of these statements. First of all, it is clear that this activity will only be performed on water bodies that underwent an improvement (Zwalm_9 and Zwalm_8). Next, the target value should best be set in order to maximize the potential Fish score improvement, which turned out to be a 10% increase in depth. If needed, this will then also be the values to implement in the real simulation exercise of section 5.4.
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5.2.5 Sources - Increase WWTP efficiency
5.2.5.1 Functioning of the measure
Measure 20 of the WFD-Explorer (Increase WWTP efficiency) affects the effluent load. When the WWTP efficiency increases (with the extent of it dependent on case-specific preferences), the sources of the ‘WWTP type’ in the MS ACCESS database that underlays the WFD-Explorer software are modified. This means that the stress on the surface water is alleviated. This involves both point sources and diffuse sources. Furthermore, it is both possible to simultaneously elaborate this measure on all WWTP sources or only on certain preselected sources. This last option may come in handy if it is only technical feasible to improve the efficiency of certain WWTPs or if certain WWTPs have reached their maximum possible efficiency rate. The factor by which the effluent load will be lessened is then the result of dividing the future efficiency rate by the current efficiency rate.
5.2.5.2 Current WWTP’s, their efficiencies and the related practical implications
Currently, there are two existing WWTPs (Belconsulting, 2006). One is situated in Brakel (Aquafin identification number 37), and the other is situated in Roborst (Munkzwalm-Zwalm) (Aquafin identification number 168). The Roborst WWTP is operational since 1992 and has a capacity of 25,000 inhabitant equivalents (I.E.). The one of Brakel is more recent (1997) and can handle 7000 I.E.
The current efficiency rates are assumed to be 77% for nitrogen, 97% for BOD 5 and 85% for phosphorus (Aquafin, 2009). According to Aquafin (the company that treats wastewater in Flanders under the authority of the Flemish Government), these efficiency rates are the highest in the history of WWTPs in Flanders. It is thus rather unlikely that increasing the efficiency of the existing wastewater treatment infrastructure will significantly influence the surface water quality in the Zwalm river basin. Therefore, this measure will not be used in our simulation exercise.
5.2.6 Sources - Cleaning up point sources
A point source is defined as a source that centrally discharges pollutants on the surface water. In our case study, 29 point sources were defined in the Zwalm river basin. They discharge both N, P and BOD effluents with a certain flow. When elaborating measure 22 (cleaning up point sources) these loads are reduced with a given percentage vis-a-vis the reference situation, either generally or for limited to some specified point sources or substances. It is clear that some point sources or pollutants are easier to improve than others because of multiple financial and technical reasons. The option to selectively deal
75 with them can undoubtedly come in very handy here. If P or BOB effluents (and their related EQR max,P
EQR max,BOD ) are determining the Macrofauna score because of their limiting capability, this measure will be implemented in the associated water bodies.
5.2.7 Ecological management - Fish population management
Next to the elaboration of certain indirect measures (like hydromorphological interventions or measures that affect the water quality in a positive way), an optimal fish habitat can also be elaborated with measures that directly intervene with the quantity and relative composition of fish species. Namely, it can be preferable to promote or even combat certain species in order to enhance the ecological status of the water body. Nevertheless, the implementation of this measure in the WFD-Explorer is only possible for some particular indicator species. These indicator species are then used to calculate the Fish score (which is part of the total Ecological Quality Ratio calculation).
This action is clearly an example of top-down management. On the contrary, all other measures already discussed were examples of bottom-up management. Namely, they try to ‘steer’ the ecological quality from below (see also Figure 6). Managing the fish population is visibly a whole other approach. It tries to improve the Fish score directly by assuming other abundances or species compositions without considering the circumstances (BOD, velocity, depth) needed in the water body. The practicability of this measure can thus certainly be questioned. The difference between these two approaches is clarified in Figure 18.
Fig. 18: The relationships between actions (both control actions and actions that intervene with steering variables) and Biological Quality Elements present in our research (adapted from Leven met Water, 2007).
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5.3 Point of departure
5.3.1 Ecological Quality Ratio
After loading the initial data (this means without any restoration measures yet), the EQR in the Zwalm river basin is represented in Figure 19. This figure demonstrates that the generally spoken, the overall ecological quality in the Zwalm river basin can be considered as moderate, with some unsatisfactory and bad water bodies (number 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 11, 18). Unfortunately, none of the water bodies complies with the Water Framework Directive requirement of a ‘good’ ecological status.
Fig. 19: WFD-Explorer representation of the initial Ecological Quality Ratio situation in the Zwalm river basin.
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5.3.2 Limiting factors
Out of the discussion in section 5.1 it became clear that in order to determine the most efficient restoration action package, it is necessary to first determine the limiting factor in each water body. By implementing one of the selected restoration options out of section 5.2, the status of the water body can then be improved.
Table 5: The water bodies (and number), the Fish score, the Macrofauna score and the resulting limiting factor (F= Fish, MF = Macrofauna).
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5.3.2.1 Macrofauna as limiting factor
Since the variables that affect the Macrofauna score are river sinuosity (S), velocity (V), total phosphorus
(P) and Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD 5), measures that have an impact on these elements should be implemented if the Macrofauna is the limiting factor. This is the case for water bodies 9, 12, 14, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 29 (Table 6). Within the Macrofauna score, the underlaying partial EQRs, namely
EQR max,v , EQR max,s , EQR max,BOD and EQR max,P should be checked for their limiting contribution. This is represented in Table 6.
Table 6: The Water bodies that are limited by their Macrofauna score, their partial EQRs (respectively EQR max,s , EQR max,v , EQR max,P and EQR max,BOD ) and their resulting partial limiting factor (initial situation).
Out of these data, it became clear that mostly, measures that affect the sinuosity will have an effect. The only measure discussed in this research that influences the sinuosity is measure 10: Brook reconstruction/Meandering. The implementation and result of a suchlike action will be discussed in section 5.4.2.
5.3.2.2 Fish as limiting factor
For the partial Fish score, the approach is different. As described in section 5.1.2, this Fish score is composed of two partial measure categories: ‘FishAbun’ and ‘FishSpec’ that refer to respectively the abundance and species composition of the fish. As described in section 5.2.4.1 and Figure 5.2.2, there are two possible approaches to improve this score.
Firstly, there are some calculation rules are based on habitat demands of the indicator species that are typical for certain water body types. These demands are based on depth and flow figures, transformed into the necessary steering variables classes. This is the bottom-up approach. Unfortunately, the exact
79 impact of the influencing factors and the related knowledge rules on the underlaying habitat demands and class values is found to be still quite unreliable (email conversation E. Meijers). New knowledge rules are in development, but are not publicly available (and thus not implemented in the WFD-Explorer) for the moment. Implementing an exact tactic that precisely targets certain variables is thus not possible. Only a more general methodology that counts on a general impact on these crucial factors can be realized. The exact impact of changing the depth and flow characteristics of a water body stays a black- box for now.
Secondly, it is also possible to improve the fish status by implementing some top-down actions. Evidently, these actions are less pragmatic, but they will show how a ‘more ideal’ fish situation would be in accordance with a more healthy ecological state of the water system. By studying and improving the exact FishAbun and FishSpec factors and their composing elements that are limiting for the Fish score, the EQR can be increased.
For Fish score limited water bodies, the FishAbun and FishSpec elements and their composing factors are listed in Table 7. Contrary to the Macrofauna score, the final score is not determined by the minimal partial score but by some water body type specific formulas (cf. 5.1.2).
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Table 7: The Water bodies that are limited by their Fish score and their composing (limiting) elements.
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5.4 Software implementation test
5.4.1 Approach
The software implementation test was split up in two main phases. This had a well-funded reason. In normal circumstances, restoration scenarios should be created by gradually improving the most limiting factor (Fish or Macrofauna) and looking at its composing elements. This was already described in section 5.1. However, for this case study, some practical objections soon arose.
As stated in section 5.2.2, the Fish score is influenced by both the depth and the velocity of the water body. Unfortunately, as discussed in section 5.3.2.2, the rules that should determine their exact influence are not well enough developed and reliable yet. This characteristic enforces a modified approach that is primarily focused on the Macrofauna score. Although most measures will logically have consequences for the Fish score too, the first focus will thus only be on the Macrofauna score (phase 1). After having tested several restoration options for their effect on this score, the Macrofauna score should have reached the ‘good’ quality status for most water bodies.
Of course, the ultimate goal is still to improve the total EQR up to this ‘good’ quality status. Therefore, the remaining water bodies that are still limited by their Fish score after phase 1, will still be subject to some measures that have an effect on this score. First of all, as discussed in section 5.2.4, it is possible that dredging will be able to improve the Fish score of some specific water bodies. If these water bodies are not affected by dredging, and for all other water bodies still limited by their Fish score, it is still possible to perform a top-down fish population management action simulation in order to finally reach the an acceptable total EQR in these water bodies too (phase 2).
Within phase 1, the followed approach is to implement several rounds of measures. In each round, the limiting partial factors (within the Macrofauna score) are looked up and measures that should improve these elements are simulated accordingly. Of course, the list of possible measures to implement will always be restricted by practical relevance. This software simulation is thus only a theoretical exercise. This was already discussed in section 5.2. After having simulated the appropriate measure combination, new limiting factors are considered when looking for new restoration options, and so on. This is repeated until a satisfactory Macrofauna EQR for all considered water bodies considered is reached.
Finally, because the WFD-Explorer is developed in the Netherlands and as a consequence based on Dutch boundary values between classes, the good status is equalized to a value between 0.6 and 0.8. These values are thus slightly different that the ones proposed in chapter 3. This was already mentioned in the beginning of chapter 3.
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5.4.2 Phase 1 - Action round 1
The partial EQR max,v and thus the sinuosity (S) is the most represented limiting factor for the Macrofauna score. This was already shown in Table 6, but also counts for all other water bodies. It is thus clear that this score is very important. Furthermore, for two water bodies the velocity (V) is the limiting factor and for the Bettelhovebeek water body, the total phosphorus (P) is the limiting factor. Measures that interact with these variables are ‘Manure policy’ (P), ‘Ecological embankments’ (V), ‘Brook reconstruction/remeandering’ (V and S), and ‘Dredging’ action (V). Because all those measures, except for the third measure, only interact with the velocity (and not with the sinuosity), they are only relevant for the Zwalm_4 and Zwalm_5 water bodies. The dredging activity, only relevant for the Zwalm_4 (cf. section 5.2.4.3), is left aside here. The reason for this was already set out in section 5.2.4.2. All of this implies that only the first three measures will be simultaneously implemented in this round. Before starting the real simulation exercise, some more data need to be clarified.
5.4.2.1 Inputs for manure policy
As described in section 5.2.1, via a (non-official) measurement definition (49), manure pollution sources can be tackled. This indirect method to still implement some kind of manure measures is the only way (in other countries that the Netherlands) to see the effect of a particular manure policy. One can determine the fraction and target (N or P AGRI sources) of reduction in the intervention definition. In practice, this reduction is realizable through measures such as decreasing the artificial fertilizer use, decreasing the livestock and increasing the manure processing (Mira, 2006). As only the phosphorus (P) load will have an effect on one of the scores considered (namely Macrofauna, cf. section 5.1.1), only testing the effects of a reduction of this type of discharge is useful for our purposes.
What should now be the percentage of P reduction that would result in a simulation of an optimal manure policy? This means, what would be the effect of a P discharge quantity exactly equal to the legislative requirements? Therefore, in Flanders, the MIRA-reports are key. MIRA (Milieurapport Vlaanderen, Environment Report Flanders) is a part of the Flemish Environment Agency and is thus a governmental institution. MIRA describes, analyses and evaluates the state of the Flemish environment, the pursued policy and the potential future developments on the subject of environmental protection (
“Concerning phosphorus (P), the goal for the medium long period is set to 3.6 kg P/are. The surplus in 2005 amounted 8.7 million kg P or 13.9 kg P/ha and is consequently still 6.5 million P or 10.3 kg P/are away from the target level” (Mira, 2006). This can be found in Table 8.
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Table 8: Overview of the historical and targeted phosphorus surplus rates (Mira, 2006).
Goal P Situation P (2005) Gap Gap (in terms of percentage) 3.6 kg P/are 13.9 kg P/are 10.3 kg P/are 74 %
Rounded, this brings a necessary reduction of 75% total Phosphorus reduction per are along. For simplicity’s sake, we assume this to be the same average overall reduction necessary per day. This will thus be the number to use in the WFD-Explorer simulation exercise.
5.4.2.2 Inputs for ecological embankments
Before implementing this measure, some parameters had to be defined:
the depth of the new profile (H); the bottom width in the center of the new profile (W0).
We assume that the percentage of the water body that receives the new desired natural profile is a 100%. This means that the water body under consideration will be totally changed to profile type 2 (natural profile with bank vegetation). Furthermore, the depth (H) and bottom width (W0) were assumed to stay less or more the same. That is to say, in the original dataset, when defining the depth and width, most water bodies were further subdivided in sections with different depth (H) and bottom width (W0). Unluckily, this subdivision is not yet implementable in the definition of the brook reconstruction/meandering measure. Therefore, a method was developed to determine the necessary H and W0 input for implementing this action. For each of the water bodies for which this measure was selected, the weighted average of both the depth and bottom width and their respective proportional occurrence in the water body was calculated. These weighted averages were then the inputs for this measure.
5.4.2.3 Inputs for brook reconstruction/remeandering
Also for this measure, some parameters had to be defined:
the depth of the new profile (H); the bottom width in the center of the new profile (W0); the new sinuosity for the total water body.
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The first two parameters were equally calculated as for the above measure (cf. section 5.4.1.1). For the last necessary input, different sinuosity values are possible. The sinuosity of a water body is the length of the water course divided by the length of the water body. Because all sinuosity values of the original dataset were chosen to be 1, this is a straight river, any increase of this value would improve the sinuosity.
It is clear that an increasing degree of sinuosity is more difficult to implement in real life. For example, it will be more costly to perform the infrastructure work and to convince the owners of the area where these operations should be performed. Therefore, an evaluation of the relative profit of increasing the sinuosity will be crucial to determine a realistic and desirable degree of sinuosity.
For this analysis, this sinuosity value was tested for values of 1.055, 1.255 and 1.500. As can be found in Table 9, these values are the upper bound of respectively the ‘stretched’, ‘medium winding’ and ‘winding’ class. It is clear that these values can also be looked at as the lower bound of respectively the ‘medium winding’, ‘winding’ and ‘meandering’ class.
Table 9: The different sinuosity classes and their upper/lower bounds.
Class name Lower bound Upper bound Straight 1.000 1.010 Stretched 1.010 1.055 Medium winding 1.055 1.255 Winding 1.255 1.500 Meandering 1.500 -
Surprisingly, the final EQR results of all three simulation exercises were exactly the same. However, when thinking in the logic of the WFD-Explorer tool, this is not that strange at all. Namely, a slight increase in sinuosity already takes the EQR max,s away from its limiting position (in this round). Any larger increase in this round will thus not affect the total EQR because now another factor will determine this rate. Though, when keeping in mind that the ultimate goal (after all phases) should be ‘good’ in most cases (cf. chapter 3), the smallest sinuosity value that will be sufficient is no more than 1.055. Namely, this value results in a stable EQR max,s score of 0.657 (which is equal to ‘good’ status in the WFD-Explorer).
By choosing this sinuosity class and consequently removing the limiting capabilities of EQR max,s , it is already ensured that reaching the ‘good’ ecological quality remains possible. The setting of the sinuosity value to 1.55 is thus necessary but not sufficient. To be precise, it is still possible that one of the three other partial Macrofauna scores (namely EQR max,v , EQR max,BOD and EQR max,P ) will limit the Macrofauna and thus the EQR score. This will become clear in the remainder of this chapter.
On the other hand, it is possible to still opt for a higher sinuosity class with the intention of increasing the total EQR towards a level even higher than the European Water Framework Directive requirement
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(e.g. a sinuosity value of 10255, which would result in a EQR max,s value of 0.761). Only, it is clear that further increasing this value makes no sense because this endangers its practical feasibility. Therefore, the sinuosity class of 1.055 was opted for in this research. This value was immediately applied for all water bodies. Even if the EQR max,s was not found to be the limiting factor for round 1, it is certain that it would become the case in future rounds.
5.4.2.4 Results of phase 1
Already for this intermediate step, some conclusions can be drawn. As can be seen in Table 10, the Macrofauna score has improved in all water bodies except for Bettelhovebeek and Molenbeek_0. Generally spoken, the correctness of our approach is thus justified empirically. The improvement in Macrofauna mostly corresponds to a final EQR improvement if the Macrofauna score was the limiting factor. Also, for some Fish score limited water bodies, an unintentional but valuable increase in Fish score benefits the final EQR score. The overall balance of this round of measures can thus be considered positive.
In spite of above significant progress, these advances are not yet at all times represented in a EQR progress. There are several reasons for this discrepancy. First of all, it is possible that the Macrofauna has increased, but the EQR is still determined by a Fish score which has not increased simultaneously. Another possibility is a deterioration in the Fish score (limiting factor or not) to an extent that is pernicious for the EQR score. It is even possible that a water body previously limited by the Macrofauna score now becomes limited by the lowered Fish score (Zwalm_3). Lastly, for Bettelhovebeek and
Molenbeek_O, the partial EQR max,v was negatively influenced by the remeandering action and set back the improvement in the EQR max,s. Certainly, it is possible to undo the sinuosity measure for these two water bodies, but the fact is that then it will never be possible to reach the ‘good’ quality (cf. 5.4.2.3). Therefore, even so it slightly decreases the Macrofauna score, the brook reconstruction/remeandering measure is preferred to be kept in place.
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Table 10: EQR, Macrofauna and Fish score (both absolute and relative to the initial situation) after having implemented ecological embankment (Zwalm_4 and Zwalm_5) and brook reconstruction/remeandering measures (all water bodies listed) measures.
* Relative scores are calculated as: (after implementing measures - before measure implementation) / before)
Unmistakably, tuning Macrofauna-related elements (such as total phosphorus, velocity and sinuosity) can have unanticipated effects. Firstly, there’s the change in the Fish score caused by a change in its determining elements (flow and depth values). Secondly, it is possible that when tuning certain steering variables, another partial Macrofauna score is influenced. This influence is not always as hoped for and can be negative.
5.4.3 Phase 1 - Action round 2
Before selecting the appropriate measures for further improving the Ecological Quality Ratio, the new limiting factors need to be determined. Of course, only water bodies that don’t comply with the WFD- goal yet (only considering Macrofauna score) need to be considered. This is done by means of Table 11.
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Table 11: The Water bodies that are limited by their Macrofauna score, their partial EQRs (respectively EQR max,s , EQR max, v, EQR max,P and EQR max,BOD ) and their resulting partial limiting factor (after having implemented action round 1).
Out of Table 11, it is clear that generally measures affecting V and P should be implemented in order to improve the Macrofauna score. Only for the Krombeek water body, the EQR max,BOD seems to be the limiting factor. For the Zwalm_4 water body, all measures influencing the velocity are already put into practice. This implies the total EQR for this water body to be stuck to the value of Table 10. For V and P, the goal setting and appropriate measures were already described in sections 5.4.2.1 and 5.4.2.2 respectively. To improve the EQR max,BOD , several measures are possible. First of all, the WWTP efficiency can be improved. But since the treatment efficiencies are already very high (97% for BOD 5) in Flanders, it would be almost technically impossible or too costly to implement an efficiency increase (cf. section 5.3.2.1). Therefore, this measure is not included in our action plan. The second option is to clean up some BOD point sources in this particular area (measure 22). The actual reduction percentage determination is described in section 5.4.3.1.
5.4.3.1 Inputs for cleaning up point sources
There is just one necessary input for this measure that needs to be determined. This is the reduction percentage. As the practical implacability decreases with an increase in reduction percentage, it is crucial to determine this value optimally. Therefore, several values were tested in the WFD-Explorer, together with their influence on the EQR max,BOD . It is clear that the percentage finally decided upon should result in an EQR max,BOD of at least 0.6. Simultaneously, it should not be higher than necessary because of above-mentioned practicability implications. In Table 12 multiple reduction values with their associated EQR max,BOD for the Krombeek can be found.
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Table 12: Multiple possible values for the cleaning up point sources reduction percentage and the resulting
EQR max,BOD. (Krombeek).
Reduction percentage Resulting EQR max,BOD 5% 0.557 10% 0.600 15% 0.624 20% 0.649
From 10% on, the resulting EQR max,BOD is sufficient to make it possible to reach a ‘good’ Macrofauna score. But, making the analysis less susceptible for inaccuracies and less sensitivity for mistakes, a reduction value of 15% was opted for.
5.4.3.2 Results of round 2
After having implemented the next round of measures, some new changes in the Macrofauna score were established (Table 13). Also this time, the total EQR score was influenced. Firstly, for the Bettelhovebeek and Molenbeek_O water bodies, the EQR went even further down. For water body number 20, 23, 26 and 28 the EQR score went up. Strikingly, the extra measures implemented in this second round did thus not only affect the water bodies subject to these measures directly, but also some other (connected) water bodies (water bodies 20 and 28). This because of the interconnectivity of the water bodies.
When only looking at the Macrofauna score, all water bodies except for Bettelhovebeek and Molenbeek_O were again positively influenced. It seems that in these last water bodies measures that normally should improve the EQR max,v (and they do in all other water bodies that this measure is applied to), have a contradictory effect. This was already clear in round 1 but is now more significant in round 2. Contrary to the first round where the brook reconstruction/remeandering measures was chosen to be kept in place because of methodological reasons (cf. section 5.4.2.4), it seems wise to undo the ecological embankment measure before starting with round 3. This brings their Macrofauna (and thus EQR) values to these after the implementation of round 1. For the rest of the analysis (phase 1), they will therefore be kept out of the dataset.
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Table 13: Macrofauna and Fish score (both absolute and relative to the initial situation) after also having implemented the round 2 measures.
* Relative scores are calculated as: (after implementing measures - before measure implementation) / before)
5.4.4 Phase 1 - Action round 3
After this round, only one water body (that still is considered to be altered by implementing extra actions) is still under the 0.6 limit: the Krombeek. The limiting factor for Krombeek has become the total phosphorus (EQR max,P = 0.587). Logically, the according last measure to be implemented in this water body will be a manure policy action.
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5.4.4.1 Results of round 3
Table 14: Macrofauna and Fish score (both absolute and relative to the initial situation) after also having implemented the round 3 measures.
* Relative scores are calculated as: (after implementing measures - before measure implementation) / before)
** This is not yet accepted as a ‘good’ status. Even though these water bodies are listed with a 0.6 EQR, they are not classified yet as good because of rounding (in reality they are still slightly smaller than 0.6).
Out of this table (Table 14), it is clear that except for the exceptions mentioned before (Zwalm_4, Molenbeek_O and Bettelhovebeek) all Macrofauna score are at least 0.6. The phase 1 goal of this research was thus reached for almost all water bodies. The next step will be to enhance the Fish score as well in order to finally reach a sufficient total EQR score.
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5.4.5 Phase 2
In this phase, the water bodies still limited by their Fish score will be improved until they have reached the ‘good’ status. This is the case for almost all water bodies except for water body 12 (Peerdestokbeek_A), 14 (Sassegembeek), and 28 (Zwalm_9). As discussed in section 5.2, there are still two options left to improve the Fish score. First of all, only for Zwalm_8, it is possible that dredging will improve the quality of this water body. If this does not help, and for all other water bodies, the fish population management measure can be elaborated. This action will be performed by looking at the most limiting main partial Fish scores and improving them.
5.4.5.1 Dredging in Zwalm_8
In spite of the promising pre-results in section 5.2.4, it seems that the implementation of this measure in phase 2 does not result in any improvement, neither in the Macrofauna score nor in the Fish score. The only remaining option will thus be to put the fish population management into action.
5.4.5.2 Fish population management
The ecological measure used to influence the fish population can be implemented by manipulating the partial scores. The specific scores that need improvement can be targeted and thus improved.
There are two different ways to tailor this measure provided in the WFD-Explorer. First of all, it is possible to only play with the main partial scores: FishAbun and FishSpec. Secondly, it is also possible to intervene with the composing elements of these main partial scores. For R6 and R4 water types, these were already mentioned in section 5.3.2.2. This case study opted to only work with the main partial scores themselves. This in order to make the analysis and predictions slightly more realistic. Namely, the higher the level of detail for which this measure has to be implemented (main partial scores instead of their composing elements), the higher the degree of freedom that one has to determine the underlaying actions for it (working with the composing fish elements in practice) and the more practically realizable and realistic it becomes.
Practically, to implement this measure in the WFD-Explorer, the absolute value of the increase in targeted value should be defined. Since the total Fish score is calculated as the average of the FishAbun and FishSpec score, there are several potential approaches. It is possible to increase either one of them to an extent that increases the average above the 0.6 level, or one can increase them both up to the 0.6 level. Only the scenario where both main partial scores are increased was simulated here. This allows for
92 less sensitive results. This could be of importance when it would turn out afterwards that it is practically impossible to elevate the selected score to the very high level necessary for the other two scenarios.
Concretely, in this scenario, both the FishAbun and the FishSpec score are increased until they will have reached the 0.6 limit. Because the final goal is to reach this goal in all remaining water bodies, the maximum gap (between FishAbun or FishSpec score now and after fish population management) serves as the basis to set this input value. After only adding a small increase of 0.1 (in order to counter rounding errors) is to this maximum gap, the measure is ready to be simulated. The applied method is thus a partial basin wide approach. In this case, this is 0.38 for FishAbun and 0.42 for the FishSpec. Logically, in most water bodies the (partial) Fish score will become even better than the 0.6 cut-off point. All of this is summarized in following table: Table 15.
Table 15: The FishAbun and FishSpec values of the water bodies that still haven’t reached the 0.6 limit, their distance from this goal together with the derived maximum value that will be used as input value for fish population management restoration action and their new values after having implemented the phase 2 measure.
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* A ‘negative gap’ means that the main partial Fish score is already above 0.6
5.4.5.3 Results of phase 2
After having implemented the fish population measures in phase 2, it is time to evaluate all finally obtained EQR scores. As initially intended, almost all water bodies have reached the 0.6 ‘good’ level. There are three exceptions: Bettelhovebeek, Molenbeek_A and Zwalm_4. There reasons here for were already set out in above sections. As the final EQR is determined by its lowest partial score, it is obvious that also both the Macrofauna and Fish scores are mostly above the 0.6 barrier. Logically, these partial results have the same exceptions. The Macrofauna scores are mostly only slightly above the ‘good’ barrier. On the contrary, the Fish scores are mostly quite excellent.
Table 16: Macrofauna and Fish score (both absolute and relative to the initial situation) after also having implemented the phase 2 measures.
* Relative scores are calculated as: (after implementing measures - before measure implementation) / before)
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5.4.6 Final conclusion
By gradually improving the limiting factors in subsequent rounds, the total EQR in the Zwalm river basin could substantially be improved. Apart from the inescapable minor deterioration in one water body (Molenbeek_O), all water bodies have improved more than 10% (Figure 20 (a)). As can be seen in Figure 20 (b), most water bodies have reached the European Water Framework directive requirement of a ‘good’ status for the surface waters.
(a) (b)
Fig. 20: WFD-Explorer representation of the Ecological Quality Ratio situation in the Zwalm river basin, after having sequentially implemented several measure rounds.
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6 A user-evaluation of the WFD-Explorer: the different implementation stages and related experiences
After having implemented the WFD-Explorer software tool, it is useful to perform a user-evaluation of it to assess the potential flaws, obstacles but also benefits of using this tool. Because the implementation process exists out of different phases, this will be the structure followed in this review exercise as well.
According to the WFD-Explorer manual (Leven met Water, 2007), the initiation of a new application consists out of four phases:
Definition phase: delineation of investigated area, of measures, of problems, of stakeholders… construction phase: collecting data, setting up the database, configuration of measures; acceptance phase: are the results realistic, is the tool reliable, what can be done to improve; application phase: analyses by the WFD-Explorer, discuss and report.
In the next sections, these phases will be decomposed into different indispensible steps. Logically, the structure and some basic WFD-Explorer tool information described in the remainder of this chapter is also based on the WFD-Explorer manual (Leven met Water, 2007). Together with a comprehensive overview some of the inputs and actions in each step, the accompanying potential and actual experienced flaws or benefits will be given. Before concluding, some additional general remarks are described.
6.1 Definition phase
6.1.1 Installation
The program is open source software and is readily downloadable from
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6.1.2 Data collection
When initiating a new WFD-Explorer project, some preliminary work should be performed. In order to determine the project and area specific bottlenecks, it is necessary to collect a lot of data: a thorough listing of the water system characteristics (flow rate, section, …), the nutrient loads and sources, … These data mostly refer to numbers that need to be collected through measurements and that are necessary to determine the wanted ecological measuring quality criteria (namely fish, macro-fauna, macrophyton and phytoplankton).
Pertaining to the data get-together, one major advantage is that the data collection can be tailored and restricted to the particular goal of the case. For example, if all bottlenecks are ecological, non-nutrient substances can be left out. Also, for a chemical project, no ecological data should be gathered. Furthermore, steering variables that are not important for a specific project can be excluded. This clearly lightens the time and budget consuming process of data gathering and processing.
Nevertheless, this tailoring possibility is only lowering the huge data collection burden to a limited extent. Luckily, for this research, a basic data set was already available and only some updating needed to be done. However, when starting up a totally new project, it is reasonable to say that the data collection process can take several months and full-time effort. In addition, the necessary data can sometimes be difficult or even impossible to obtain because of different reasons. The most appearing difficulties are that the data are scattered over different institutions or that no proper measurements have been performed yet. This certainly can hinder the attractiveness and usability of the WFD- Explorer. More details about the specific data requirement of the WFD-Explorer will be provided in section 6.2.1.
6.1.3 Level of detail
6.1.3.1 Spatial detail level
The WFD-Explorer works on the water body level. More detailed levels can possibly be defined manually, but this creates an unjustified appearance of accuracy. On top of that, necessary information that would be needed to effectively implement a smaller scale is often difficult to get or even not available (cf. also 6.1.2). Technically, it is not possible to define and implement more detailed ecological knowledge rules in the tool yet (Van den Belt, 2008). However, the WFD-Explorer working group is constantly trying to improve the tool and defining new or better knowledge rules. Out of personal communication with Mr. Erwin Meijers, it became clear that a new version that claims to be improved substantially is about to be launched (end of May 2009).
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As also already mentioned in previous research investigating the strengths and weaknesses of the WFD- toolbox, generally spoken the scale is too rough to generate results that are really reliable. Nevertheless, if combined with other, more detailed studies on physical habitat restoration effects, the WFD-Explorer can be considered as a highly usable instrument for water management in the context of the realization of the Water Framework Directive (Mouton et al., 2009).
6.1.3.2 Periodical detail level
Next to the spatial detail level difficulties, descriptions of variances in the water and substance balance over time are restricted to an average summer or winter picture (cf. also section 1.4). This certainly exceeds the timeframe in which most physical-chemical processes occur. The final maximal effect of a certain (packet of) measure(s) is thus only instantly visible. This means that no transitional states can be examined. Al of this makes it impossible to see variation within a certain water body (evidently except for the comparison of beginning and end state). Nevertheless, variation across water bodies is still perfectly possible (Leven met Water, 2007).
6.1.3.3 Conclusion
The extent of importance of these potential disadvantages and the appropriateness of the tool are certainly project dependent. It is obvious that the WFD-Explorer is most suitable when communicative aspects are important and when the project aims to deliver a global analysis of weighing different restoration options. It is a tool that is certainly suitable as a supporting instrument in the regional decision-making process. The problem remains that a high level of detail leads to engagement, but that it is still not really possible in WFD-Explorer.
The manual tries to counter these criticisms by handing some tips that could possibly overcome the dissatisfaction concerning the insufficient level of detail (Leven met Water, 2007). This is mainly the case for the interventions. Namely, it is possible to define the measures very precisely and to describe them thoroughly. Like that, measures are tailored to a specific project’s requirements and can be applied in a more detailed manner. For example, for predefined measure 17 (Infrastructure: Dredging), the exact extent of increasing the depth and the extent of applicability (%) for the water body can be introduced. Another example is the possibility for certain predefined measures to add planning maps containing their locations and dimensions.
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6.1.4 Selection of measures
It is possible to simulate different categories of intervention actions in the WFD-Explorer tool, namely measures interfering with manure policy, infrastructure, sources, water management or others. In a thorough analysis, most of these types will be included in an analysis. In addition to effective-proof measures, some clearly less effective but ‘popular’ measures should be included. This because the tool can show to the stakeholders and policy-makers exactly why they are not or will not be very useful.
In the basic version of the downloadable WFD-tool are already 46 measures predefined together with their working mechanism (Leven met Water, 2007). It is also possible to insert new measures (totally new or based on already defined measures). However, this is technically rather hard to realize individually because of the required knowledge of the internal functioning of the tool. Also, as experienced during this research and confirmed by Mr. Erwin Meijers, some of the measures are not working optimally or even not at al. The practically available measure base is thus smaller than what is claimed in the manual. This can be considered as a disadvantage. However, this is promised to be solved in future versions of the tool.
6.2 Construction phase
6.2.1 The five steps and the related key elements in the WFD-Explorer schematization
In the construction phase, five steps can be defined (Leven met Water, 2007). They are (1) the classification in water bodies and drainage areas (basins), (2) gather water bodies and drainage areas characteristics, drawing up the (3) water and (4) substance balance and (5) the measures configuration. A WFD-Explorer schematization has thus four key elements: water bodies, drainage areas, sources and possible interventions. The MS Access Database is also based on these elements.
Above all, water bodies need to be defined. These are the units for which resulting ecological and other scores will be calculated. The WFD-Explorer manual (2007) advises to tune their demarcation to the water body definition as carried out in the context of the execution of the first phases of the Water Framework Directive. In this case study however (based on data from Mouton et al., 2009), they were defined on a smaller scale in order to test the tool’s reliability on this kind of level of detail. In our case study, 29 water bodies were defined, together with their characteristics. The hydromorphological aspects of a water body are covered by the provision predefined profiles. Also combinations of these types of profiles can be established.
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Next, drainage areas are delineated. They enclose all water courses that are considered as too small to be an elaborated as a separate water body and surround a certain water body. After defining all water bodies and drainage areas in the area subject to investigation, all their interrelationships are defined. Also for drainage areas, characteristics have to be defined. These are the volume and area of the basin.
Before finally deploying the WFD-Explorer tool, the ‘water and substance balances’ should also be in place. Therefore, several data are necessary: sources (the distinction between point sources and diffuse sources is only possible for substance source), flow rates … The sources are quite important. They drain water or substances into either the water bodies or the drainage areas that will in turn pass on some of it to other water bodies or drainage areas. A part of it will always be withheld because of retention and decomposition processes. These flow processes should be analyzed and consequently schematized. This is called the ‘balance of water and substances’ (cf. Figure 6, section 1.4).
Also the measures have to be configured to the specific local circumstances. This means for example the exact definition of the purifying efficiency of an existing WWTP both in the current circumstances and after increasing the efficiency by means of an extra purifying stage. Measures can interfere with either the sources, water bodies or drainage areas.
As already touched upon in section 6.1.2 and also relevant for this phase, it is very likely that some difficulties will arise when collecting the necessary data and the schematization process. Out of above discussion, it is very clear that a lot of data and knowledge need to be defined and introduced into the database. For example, is known to be difficult to set down the mutual relationships between water bodies and drainage areas in non-sloping areas (Leven met Water, 2007). Yet, the WFD-Explorer manual provides some tips to obtain these links, like deriving it from certain calculation models or basin it on water manager judgments.
6.2.2 The databases
Most of the data used by the WFD-Explorer is captured in MS Access databases. There are two types of databases: the Knowledge database (KnowledgeBase.mdb) and the Area Database (WFDExplorer.mdb) (Leven met Water, 2007).
The Knowledge Database comes together with the software and is not readily modifiable, although the data can be viewed through a MS-DOS file (ViewKnowledgeBase.bat). It contains the ecological knowledge rules plus generic measure definitions and is common for all cases. The inaccessibility of these data is in place in order to enhance its function as a common knowledge and information platform. This logically precludes individual modifications and the resulting incomparability of outcomes. This does not mean that the Knowledge Database is never changed or updated according to new
100 insights. On the contrary, regularly updates are carried out. Therefore, it is called a ‘living instrument’. Only, this is done centrally and as a result of user and expert consultation meetings.
On the other hand, the Area database should be entirely filled up by the user of the tool by him/her. It is area/case specific. This database should follow a predefined and strict structure. There is a manual available, although (temporarily) only in Dutch. The completion of the Area Database can be very hard: Some mandatory inputs can be hard to acquire or define (cf. 6.2.1, 6.1.2), in some cases rough input data can be mistranslated to the data type required by the database (e.g. concerning maps), errors can occur because of mistakes in the input process… Also, even a small misfit to the predefined structure will prevent the database to load in the program.
6.3 Acceptance phase
The acceptance phase is then the phase where calculations are checked on their reliability by examining the outcomes from the software for compatibility with actual measurements and the judgments of real- life skilled experts. It should attend the need for increasing the acceptability with policy makers, water managers and others responsible for the official water policy of a certain region. In our case study with its limited scope and timeframe, this phase was skipped. However, it is certainly recommended to do perform this check for real-life projects and possibly for future research. Nevertheless, in the next two sections, the theoretical approach will shortly be explained to give an idea of necessary steps of this phase.
6.3.1 Validation by measurements
The three things that can be validated by actual measurement data are (Leven met Water, 2007):
the water movement, by measured flow rates; the substance balance, by measured concentrations; the ecology, by measured water quality criteria (phytoplankton, macrophytes, macrofauna and fish).
In case of deviations, several causes are possible. Mostly, data deficiencies will be at the basis of such errors. It is recommended to go back step by step to check on the data and their correctness. When steering variables are involved (in the case of ecology), it can be much more difficult to discover the real cause. It often means that the related knowledge rules are (slightly) incorrect. Unfortunately, these
101 knowledge rules are not readily modifiable. The only way to improve and adapt them is to put them on the agenda of the WFD-Explorer development team.
6.3.2 Validation by experts
The WFD-Explorer toolbox tries to overcome the setback of untransparancy in yet another way: Experts are actively involved in the development and updating process of the tool (Van den Belt, 2008). This is undoubtedly a win-win situation. By early engaging them, their recognition of the reliability and usability of the tool is ensured. This enhances the diffusion of the tool in areas where the Water Framework Directive is applicable and that have similar characteristics like the areas where the tool was tested and validated. On the other hand, experts will be surer that the tool performs adequately. This guarantees its usability for their concrete projects and like that, their workload can be lowered.
In an expert group, following expertise should be encompassed: a hydrologist (for the water balance), a water quality expert (for substance concentration) and an ecologist (for assessing and validating the ecological status) (Leven met Water, 2007).
6.4 Application phase
Logically, the last phase is the actual use of the tool. Its purpose is to demonstrate the future positive or negative effects of certain restoration options. In the manual (Leven met Water, 2007), the ultimate goal of the WFD-Explorer is stated to be “a quick-to-handle instrument during an interactive workshop with administrators and stakeholders”. Because the WFD-Explorer is thus a rather communicative tool that aims to deliver rapid response to user-interaction, the underlying methods and procedures are somewhat invisible and often considered to be a ‘black box’. When a user selects a measure, he/she will be able to see very quickly the effect of it on the ecological status. The calculations that led to this effect are done ‘behind the scenes’ and are not (directly) visible (Van den Belt, 2008). However, is possible to generate several reports with the composing elements of a certain result and the related calculations. Since recently, the knowledge rules are also published on a ‘Wiki page’ (
Reliability, fastness and communicativeness are considered to be key. Because of the justification phase in the development process (discussed in section 6.3.2), the outcomes of the WFD-Explorer calculations
102 should be validated and accepted by experts. Secondly, if working properly, when a user selects a measure, he/she will be able to see very quickly the effect of it on the ecological status. This also implies the opportunity to enhance learning about the relationship between objective, measure, impact of the measure on the ecological status and cost of the measure. A possible disadvantage here is the exponentially increasing response time when expanding the investigated area. However, this could be mitigated by splitting up this area into multiple subareas. Lastly, the WFD-Explorer communicative asset should be fully exploited and a full range of possible measures (also the non-effective ones!) should be elaborated in a workshop. The simulation of measures that traditionally brings high expectations along could prove to the listeners that maybe other measures are more appropriate.
6.5 General remarks
6.5.1 Helpdesk
While trying to implement the WFD-Explorer tool, many times an appeal had to be made to the help functionality provided by the WFD-Explorer related institutions. All contact goes via email (krw- [email protected]). In this case, we specifically were in contact with Mr. Erwin Meijers of Deltares (
6.5.2 Implementation run time
Generally, the run time needed to set up an entirely new application is estimated to be three to five months. Of course this is dependent on multiple facets: the area under investigation, the level of detail that is desired, the extent of data that are already available, amount of regional policy documentation with regard to bottlenecks and measure programmes … Luckily, sometimes it is possible to shorten this run time heavily by elaborating several actions like the employment of already existing (hydrological) models and an early involvement of experts and stakeholders. In our case, an existing database could be used as a start. After elaborating some updates and modifications necessary for the current WFD- Explorer version, the actual analysis could quickly take off. However, the time needed to get used to the tool and its underlying databases cannot be underestimated. Manuals help to get the hang of them, but are not always very unambiguous and complete. Generally, the tool is still complicated and merely user- friendly. This is of course only the case if the full implementation has to be walked through. For users
103 that can make use of the first three phases’ existing results (definition phase, construction and acceptance phase), the implementation process is hugely simplified and very user-friendly.
6.5.3 Updates
Since the early start in 2005 (early prototype), many updates have been launched. These updates implemented a wide range of improvements, from simple debugging to revising knowledge rules in order to bring them up to the state-of-the-art level. The last version 1.04.0025 was introduced this year on 11 March 2009. Out of communication with Mr. Erwin Meijers (cf. section 6.5.1), it turned out that a significantly new version is about to be revealed in May or June 2009. Because at the time of initial development goals were not yet determined for all water types (cf. Chapter 3: Goal setting) and the monitoring network was still in its infancy, it was difficult to divert ecological knowledge rules and calculation formulas for all water types or all quality elements. Furthermore, because of the user- interaction possibility, the use of complex models is restricted. Hence, mostly simplified ecological models are used.
This is also visible when looking at the projects for which the WFD-Explorer was already used in practice. These projects focused mainly on the water and substances balance. Ecological applications are more difficult to find. This is because the lack of (good) ecological knowledge rules. The overall quality of the knowledge rules is judged to be still insufficient. Also there is clearly a lack of trust in the knowledge and calculation rules, which even has lead to pulling out in the past. Other problems experienced are the maintaining of the old version usage. The advantages of the latest updates are not convincing enough or not communicated enough (Van den Beld, 2008).
After a few years, experience together with the creation of datasets and tools useful for a WFD-Explorer implementation provoked the planning of a totally new version that will utilize more elaborated, detailed but also more transparent knowledge rules. Especially for the infrastructure measures category wanted in our simulation exercise, some important changes will be carried out. The new knowledge rules have different steering variables (for ecology). This will turn the current calculations for some of the infrastructure measures invalid. This is the case because of the loss of the original relationship between the measure in question and the accompanying ecological steering variable. Some infrastructure measures will thus have no effect. New measures will be defined, that actually take action related to the new ecological knowledge rules (Deltares and Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving, 2009). Unfortunately, it thus seems that this research was performed just a few months too early to be able to make use of this more reliable and detailed version.
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Furthermore, the team behind the development of the WFD-Explorer wants it to move from only a predictive tool to also a diagnostic tool (Van den Belt, 2008). This evolution is made clear by means of Figure 21.
Fig. 21: The evolution of WFD-Explorer goal (van Geest, 2008).
6.6 Conclusion
The intentions are definitely right: providing a tool that clearly and quickly shows the effect of potential measures on the water ecology and substances. Unfortunately, some obstacles hinder the achievement of that goal in several respects. First of all, it is not always possible to start-up a satisfactory WFD- Explorer project because of data demands. Next, the results and level of detail of the simulation exercise are not always acceptable. Of course, this depends on the project’s scope and ambition. Lastly, it is clear that the tool itself and its composing elements (like measure definitions and knowledge rules) are not landed in an adequately advanced phase yet.
Luckily, above disadvantages are counterweighted by a list of valuable benefits. Among them there are the possibility to tailor the data collection process to a specific project’s need, the communicative power and resulting global analysis.
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Above listed positive and negative elements together with some other aspect are listed in Table 17.
Table 17: Positive and negative elements of the WFD-Explorer.
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CONCLUSION
In 2000, the European Water Framework Directive was issued. One of the objectives of this directive is reaching a good ecological surface water quality by the end of 2015. This should be realized by the Member states, who had to assign water bodies to river basins, who where in turn subdivided in partial river basins. This last level was the focus of this master thesis.
Firstly, by looking into the Flemish partial basin level, more specifically the Zwalm river basin, several elements became clear:
The WFD-requested documents are drawn up in time (2009). The required authorities and official bodies are put in place. They are also fully aware of the responsibilities and task descriptions are well aligned and defined; however, in general the partial plans (action plan, bottlenecks and opportunities document) still lack some detail. The fact that the responsible authorities have not arrived in that phase yet was also clearly revealed in the interview with Mr. Malfroid. For example, action plan related cost calculations are not made thus far, not even estimations. Also, actions still are rather elaborated ‘ad hoc’, when a particular need is experienced; consequently, it is very unlikely that the WFD-goals will be met in 2015. Therefore, the process of acquiring extensions and exceptions is already ongoing.
A simulation exercise in the Dutch WFD-Explorer software tool gave an idea of the effect of some measures when trying to improve the ecological state of the Zwalm river basin:
Although generally the Flemish phosphorus discharges are far from optimal, a phosphorus reduction will not significantly contribute to an improvement in the ecological state; ecological embankments and brook reconstruction/remeandering actions proved to be very useful measures in the first phases, thus handle the most stringent problems; dredging proved to be a rather ineffective measure on the large scale that this simulation exercise is performed on; the WWTP efficiency is already very high. Logically, it makes little sense to increase it even further; cleaning up point sources is very effective; the fish population also considerably determines the final ecological score. Luckily, when the Macrofauna score improves, this mostly has a positive influence of the partial Fish score too.
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Unfortunately, these results still remain quite hypothetical. Actions could not (yet) be investigated for their practicability and the list of actions in the WFD-Explorer did mostly not correspond with the provisional actions as described in the Zwalm river basin action plan.
An important side-note here is that a successful policy gradually tries to enhance the ecological state by repeatedly improving the most limiting factor. It makes no sense to augment a certain element, if the ecological state is still determined by another, more limiting, element.
Hopefully, future official documentation and plans will become more elaborated. The simulations exercise can then be redone with updated information. Also, future versions of the WFD-Explorer tool should overcome some software-related shortages. Some important missing elements and improvement opportunities are:
Cost information (investment costs and maintenance costs) and related cost-benefit analysis; fully elaborated Zwalm river basin plan actions (e.g. degree of sinuosity for remeandering); completing the database with data to calculate the other partial scores: Macrophytes and Phytoplankton reliable and state-of-the-art knowledge rules in the WFD-Explorer; more working predefined measures in the WFD-Explorer; more detailed scale possibilities in the WFD-Explorer.
Conclusively, it is apparent that water management and the related translation of the European Water Framework Directive in Flanders have become increasingly important. In recent years, plans and other documents have been drawn up. However, it is obvious that this process is not finished yet. In this context, the WFD-Explorer software tool can come in handy when evaluating certain restoration options and their effectiveness, both on ecological and cost level. Unfortunately, both the tool and the policy plans are not optimized so far. Therefore, the main strength of the WFD-Explorer provisionally remains its communicative characteristic which enables a dialogue between different stakeholders.
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INTERNET
Köhler R. (2005). Integrating Water Framework Directive and Natura 2000 in Brandenburg. WRRL- Seminar 17. Wroclaw/Oder. Brandenburg State Office for Environment.
Streefkerk and Vertegaal (2008). Integration of Nature 2000 and Water Frame Directive in the Netherlands < www.eurosite.org/en- UK/system/files/catchment_area_rijn_oost_20080903js_def_2_.pdf > (08/04/2009).
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ANNEX 1
All water and water related legislation can be structured around three periods. Within a given legislation round, some illustrative examples will be given. Every time, the specific legislative background of the example is introduced together with a short description of what the directive is about. Also the link (or the absence of a link) with the Water Framework Directive explorer will be covered shortly. The whole of this paragraph is based on information from the official European portal site for water related issues (
I. The first round of water legislation (1975-1980)
Already in the seventies, several European countries set standards and binding quality targets for rivers and lakes used for drinking water abstraction. This is represented in norms for fish waters, shellfish waters, bathing waters, groundwater, drinking water and dangerous substances. Those first directives were mainly focussed on water quality standards and on the protection of surface waters that are allocated for drinking (Kaika, 2003). Three example directives issued in this period are shortly explained hereunder. They are important because are the starting point for our modern European water management thinking and were the basis for the process that led to the development of a coherent and integrated European water policy: the Water Framework Directive.
A. The Drinking Water Directive
In 1980, the first version of this directive was issued. However, in the beginning of the nineties, it became clear that it had become out of date because of scientific and technical developments.
In 1998, the old directive was modified. The old quality standards were reviewed and, when necessary tightened. The number of parameters was reduced and others were added. This directive (98/83/EC) of 3 November 1998 covers issues concerning potable water quality. It aims to protect human health by enforcing some requirements on water intended for human consumption (apart from natural mineral waters and medicinal waters). These requirements are about both microbiological and chemical parameters. They should not cross the contaminant level, which is based on the precautionary principle. It is in fact even more stringent than what the World Health Organization (which was used as a basis) prescribes, because apart from the human health, this directive also aims to protect the environment. Apart from these European guidelines, member states have the possibility to impose additional
Annex 1-1 requirements tailored to their specific needs and conditions. Furthermore, member states are charged to regularly perform quality measurements. Also, every three years, country-specific quality report and a general summary report describing the quality of drinking water and its improvement at a European level should be published (Hulsmann, 2008).
The drinking water directive was taken into account when drawing up the Water Framework Directive. It can be found in Article 7. However, this directive is still independently into place and is even regularly the subject of reviews and discussions (IWA, 2008).
B. The Freshwater Fish Directive
The origin of the EC Freshwater Fish Directive (2006/44/EC) lies in the seventies. On 19 July 1978 the original directive (78/659/EEC) was issued. It was amended in 1991 (91/692/EEC) and 2003 (Regulation EC No 807/2003. In 2006, the original Directive together with its later amendments were collected together (without changing the basic terms).
Some fresh water bodies (identified by the member states) are appropriate for housing certain fish populations. The Directive aims to protect these water bodies and sets some quality objectives (physical and chemical) and monitoring requirements in order to encourage healthy fish populations. It affects the both the industry and sewage treatment discharges tolerated. These discharges often cause harmful consequences to the fish populations. By controlling them, fresh waters that support fish populations should be (
Member states are asked to set specific target values. These should be at least in accordance with the Directive guidelines, but can be more stringent (EC, 2006).
It will be abolished on 22 December 2013 by the Water Framework Directive. Water bodies that ware designated as Fish Directive waters will become protected areas under the Water Framework Directive.
C. Dangerous Substances Directive
In 1976, a directive concerning water pollution by discharges of certain dangerous substances (Directive 76/464/EEC) was introduced. It was one of the first water related directives to be issued and covered all types of water. This changed in 1980, when the protection of groundwater was separated and dealt with individually (directive 80/68/EEC). Dangerous substances were listed in the annex and categorized into two classes: List I substances should be eliminated and for list II substances concentration decreases
Annex 1-2 should be reached through pollution reduction programmes. For some specific list I substances, daughter directives were issued handling detailed limit values and quality objectives.
With the issuance of the Water Framework Directive in 2000, this directive was incorporated and therefore became outdated. It consequently is not valid anymore. More precisely, the 76/464/EEC Directive will be integrated in Article 22 of the Water Framework Directive. Together with Article 16 of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), it sets out the provisionary measures for the transition process from the existing Directive on discharges of certain dangerous substances (76/464/EEC) to the new guidelines covered by the Water Framework Directive.
Some provisions are the following:
Article 6 (list I substances) was cancelled when Directive 2000/60/EC came into force WFD List of priority substances (33 priority substances and 8 other pollutants – Annex X) has replaced the 1982 list I In drawing up the river basin management plans, the requirements are at least as strict as those in the original directive
The old directive consequently had the same objective like the part of the Water Framework Directive that deals with the good chemical status of the European waters.
In 2008, a new directive was issued, the Directive on Priority Substances (2008/105/EC). This directive will in turn repeal some WFD parts and also the daughter directives of the original Dangerous Substances Directive.
II. The second round of Directives: 1990-1996
After reviewing the existing legislation, some gaps and accompanying improvement opportunities became clear. This resulted in the issuance of some other important directives and a next cycle of legislation. Not only some existing directives were updated (e.g. for drinking water), also some totally new legislation was introduced. It aimed at not only setting the acceptable water quality levels themselves, but also determining and enforcing the emission levels of certain substances in order to achieve those levels. The most important ones will here be briefly discussed, more specifically the Nitrate Directive and the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. They together are responsible for eutrophication and other health effects. .
Annex 1-3
A. Nitrate Directive
On 12 December 1991, the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) was issued. It is about protecting waters against agricultural nitrate pollution. It wants to reduce this kind of pollution by extensive monitoring the nitrate levels in water, assessing the status and implementing different kinds of measures to protect the water quality. In Flanders, this is done by the water department of the environmental agency (VMM).
It requires member states to designate Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs), agree on codes of good agricultural practice with the farmers and draw up an action programme of measures (all reviewable at least every four years). Among others, rules are defined regarding periods when the application of certain fertilizer types is forbidden and the fertilizer application quantities and conditions (European Parliament, 2000).
An example is the requisite concerning the amount of livestock manure applied to the land each year (including by the animals themselves). More precisely, it requires the application of a general landspreading limit of 170 kg per hectare per year. This can be equated with the daily output from two dairy cows. In Flanders farmers even have the possibility to enter a contract with the Flemish Land Agency (VLM) to put in an even greater effort: 140 kg per hectare per year. This is an example of the agreement of codes of good practices defined together with the farmers as mentioned above. It resulted in a very strong decrease in nitrate concentration for these parcels (
It is clear that by reducing the nitrates level, the costs and easiness of treating drinking water or restoring damage from eutrophication 17 will be influenced in a positive way. Investments in urban wastewater treatments are not likely to be effective if the agrarian nitrate level is not lowered at the same time (European Parliament, 2000).
The Nitrates Directive is now almost 20 years old. In the last few years, member states showed their willingness to improve. This will normally result in attainment of the directive’s objectives and it seems not necessary to revise it in short term (EP, 2000). The Water Framework Directive thus does not introduce any change to its process or deadlines.
17 Eutrophication is an increase in chemical nutrients — compounds containing nitrogen or phosphorus — in an ecosystem, and may occur on land or in water. However, the term is often used to mean the resultant increase in the ecosystem's primary productivity (excessive plant growth and decay), and further effects including lack of oxygen and severe reductions in water quality, fish, and other animal populations. (
Annex 1-4
B. Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive
The Council Directive 91/271/EEC concerning urban wastewater treatment was launched in 1991. It wants to protect the environment from the undesirable effects of urban (domestic, or a mixture of domestic wastewater with industrial wastewater and/or run-off rain water) wastewater and some purely industrial discharges. Among other things, it requires the collection and treatment of these kinds of water in all agglomerations of more than 2000 population equivalents 18 . Furthermore, this wastewater should be taken care of by a process involving biological treatment. Also, when discharging urban or industrial wastewater, one should have an authorization to do so. The performance of treatment plans should be monitored and re-use of treated water should be encouraged.
Unfortunately, the wastewater treatment situation in Europe is still very unsatisfactory. In reports and communications from the European Commission concerning the implementation of this directive and the compliance with the Water Framework Directive goals, it became clear that significant amounts of wastewater are still not being treated adequately before being discharged. This is caused by a lack of appropriate treatment (infrastructure) and designation of sensitive areas (EC, 2007). It also often requires significant financial investments to fully comply with the Directive. For example, the cost of connecting widely dispersed houses to sewers in small rural towns imposes a high financial burden. As stated by the European Commission, the directive represents “the most cost intensive European legislation in the environmental sector” (EC, 2004). The EU estimates that 152 billion Euro were invested in wastewater treatment in the period from 1990 to 2010. Although BOD levels in European rivers have been reduced by 20-30 percent, other pollution parameters (e.g. nitrogen levels) are still too high. Since a lot of the nitrogen pollution originates from non-point agrarian sources, it is difficult to lower this via wastewater treatment plant treatments (EC, 2004).
The urban wastewater directive, as is the nitrate directive, is an example of an action taken on the European level to tackle more particular problems. The WFD thus not aims to replace them, but only aspires to coordinate their application.
C. Habitats and Birds Directive, Natura 2000
The Directive on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora (92/43/EEC) was issued in May 1992 and consolidated in 2007. Together with the Birds Directive (79/409/EEC), it was introduced with the intention of conserving the nature and biodiversity in Europe. It meets the UN Convention obligations on Biological Diversity. It has two main pillars. First of all, the Natura 2000 network defines which sites are protected. Member states should assign the ‘Special Areas of
18 This is defined as the organic biodegradable load having a five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) of 60 g of oxygen per day
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Conservation’ (SAC) status for the Habitats Directive and ‘Special Protection Areas’ (SPA) for the Birds Directive to areas within their jurisdiction. Secondly, the protection of certain species is ensured. The general aim is thus to assure long-term survival of the most threatened and valuable species and habitats in Europe. It not only covers pure nature reserves, but also privately owned land. This implies the consideration of not only ecological but also economical sustainability.
At Natura 2000 sites, both the Water Framework Directive and the Habitat Directive should be applied. But even though they both have the same base for their work (biology and biological parameters), they often work and think separately and even against each other. To be exact, both directives have their own goals and own biological measurement elements. Unfortunately, these goals are mostly not of the same type and in consequence not comparable. The Water Framework Directive is more focused on communities. The Habitat Directive on the contrary, is directed on individual species. Some differences are listed in Table 18 (Streefkerk and Vertegaal, 2008).
Table 18: The Water Framework Directive and the Habitat Directive: different scales. (Adapted from Streefkerk and Vertegaal, 2008).
Water Framework Directive Habitat Directive Water body and water type Habitat (aquatic, terrestrial) 3 Description surface waters body on system/landscape level 4 Description groundwater body on regional level Goals (MEP, GEP) Goal: favorable conservation status of habitat Water conditions (physical and chemical) Water conditions (physical and chemical) Management measures Management measures Surface water body on system/landscape Habitat level > system > landscape scale level Groundwater body on regional scale
It is clear that there is an urgent need and incentive to integrate the WFD (water resources management) and Natura 2000 (water resources conservation) requirements and monitoring programs. This is partly done by indirect references to Natura 2000 areas. The Natura 2000 areas are incorporated in the list of protected areas. More precisely, Natura 2000 sites where water is a key element or that are water dependent are subject to article 6 of the Water Framework Directive. They are called ‘protected areas’ and measures to achieve their ‘favorable conservation status' must be included in River Basin Management Plans and listed in the Register of Protected Areas. This means that the fulfilment of the Water Framework Directive must realize the required conditions in Natura 2000 sites in 2015.
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Additionally, in Article 4-1c, the need to fulfil all norms and objectives of these protected areas is defined. Lastly, in Article 1-a, the necessity to avoid further deterioration, establish protection and improvement of the state of the aquatic ecosystems and the directly depending ecosystems and wetlands with respect to their water balance is identified (EC, 2000).
Some tasks are common for both the WFD and the Natura 2000 regulations. Some examples are the survey need of all surface and ground water, the evaluation of the ecological and chemical state, the determination of reference water/programmes for management and the importance of public participation (Köhler, 2005). These examples clarify the potential advantages of integrating these two partially overlapping directives. It normally should result in budget savings, a more effective use of the budget, a more effective implementation of the objectives and tasks and a better public participation and public relations (Köhler, 2005). This is why some projects are already set up to make possible this promising integration objective (
For example, in order to avoid costly monitoring programs separately for both directives, it can be very helpful to determine whether WFD surveillance monitoring gives accurate insight in the presence of individual target species at Natura 2000 sites. This was researched by Vlek, Didderen and Verdonschot (2006). After comparing targets and requirements for the monitoring of aquatic environments as part of either the WFD or the Nature 2000 legislation, several (temporary) conclusions were drawn (Vlek et al., 2006):
For species: By far not all aquatic species from the Habitat directive can be monitored through the WFD monitoring net. This will not be solved in the future neither, because the Habitat directive requires monitoring on individual species level and also aims at mapping out the development of the population. This is contrary to the ecological community scope of the WFD monitoring objectives. Also the required WFD monitoring frequencies (once each six years for state and trend monitoring, once every three years for operational monitoring) are too low to serve as a basis for reliable statements regarding the population evolution.
For habitat types: The WFD monitoring data (macrofauna, fish and water plants) could possibly be used to monitor elements from the Habitat Directive goals. Further research resulted than in some indicative biological quality elements, monitoring frequency advice and the division of responsibilities between water and nature managers.
Some other examples can be found in Köhler (2005), Streefkerk and Vertegaal (2008) and
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In Flanders, the EU Directive was implemented via the Flemish Community delineation of habitat areas (B. VL. R. 24/05/2002). It was approved by the European Union. In the basin of the Zwalm river, most valleys in the upstream part (from Everbeek-LaHouppe to Brakel) and a section of the valleys in the downstream part (from Michelbeke to Roborst) part, together with some forests are judged to be habitat areas. This sums up to an area of 1204 ares (Belconsulting, 2003).
III. The third round of directives
During the mid-nineties, the need for a holistic and consistent approach in managing Europe’s water resources began to reveal itself. The current water policy was too fragmented, both in terms of objectives and of means. It also became increasingly clear that an efficient European water policy must involve citizens, local and regional authorities, and non-governmental organisations in the water management process too. The current policy was at that moment still inadequate on those fields. As a result, the Water Framework Directive was adopted in 2000. It consolidated a number of existing water directives into one piece of legal framework and presented a holistic and unified view on the management of all European waters. For the first time, a new approach to water management based on river basins was brought into use. It linked physical planning with water resource planning and specifies the ‘combined approach’ (see further) (Kaika, 2003).
The method used is as follows: All objectives as described in section 1.2 are established for all river basins. It involves aspects like the ecological protection and chemical protection of surface water, as well as the chemical and quantitative status of the groundwater. After determining the current status and the resulting distance of the objective of each water body, the effects of a hypothetical full implementation of all existing legislations were judged. If that means that the Water Framework Directive objective is reached, the existing legislation can stay in place. If not, the exact reasons and possible solutions or measures to actually satisfy the objectives should be identified. This should ensure full coordination.
Furthermore, to control pollution, two main types of methods are available. First of all, some legislation focuses on source control (emission limit values). Secondly, some general environmental quality standards are in place. If opting to implement just one of these approaches, this would result in a suboptimal solution. The Water Framework Directive formalizes this insight and therefore tries to combine both approaches. It does so by coordinating all environmental but source specific objectives in the existing legislation, and simultaneously providing an overall objective of good status for all kinds of water. If the existing measures are not sufficient to achieve all objectives, additional ones are called for (
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