Verification of Vulnerable Zones Identified Under the Nitrate Directive and Sensitive Areas Identified Under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive
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FINAL REPORT European Commission Directorate General Environment Verification of Vulnerable Zones Identified Under the Nitrate Directive and Sensitive Areas Identified under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive Austria January 2000 Institut für Hydraulik und Landeskulturelle Wasserwirtschaft Muthgasse 18, A-1190 Wien Telephone +43-1-36 006/5450 Facsimile +43-1-36 006/5499 http://ihlww.boku.ac.at Environmental Resources Management 8 Cavendish Square, London W1M 0ER Telephone 0171 465 7200 Facsimile 0171 465 7272 Email [email protected] http://www.ermuk.com FINAL REPORT European Commission Directorate General XI Verification of Vulnerable Zones Identified Under the Nitrate Directive and Sensitive Areas Identified under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive Austria January 2000 Reference 5765 For and on behalf of Environmental Resources Management Approved by: __________________________ Signed: ________________________________ Position: _______________________________ Date: __________________________________ This report has been prepared by Environmental Resources Management the trading name of Environmental Resources Management Limited, with all reasonable skill, care and diligence within the terms of the Contract with the client, incorporating our General Terms and Conditions of Business and taking account of the resources devoted to it by agreement with the client. 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CONTENTS 1 BACKGROUND 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.2 METHODOLOGY 1 2 INTRODUCTION 2 2.1 ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURES FOR WATER 2 2.2 WATER QUALITY MONITORING 2 3 VERIFICATION OF THE DESIGNATION OF VULNERABLE ZONES IDENTIFIED UNDER THE NITRATE DIRECTIVE 4 3.1 IMPLEMENTATION 4 4 VERIFICATION OF THE DESIGNATION OF SENSITIVE AREAS UNDER THE URBAN WASTE WATER TREATMENT DIRECTIVE 6 4.1 IMPLEMENTATION 6 4.2 VERIFICATION OF SENSITIVE AREAS 7 4.3 NITRATE IN SURFACE WATERS USED FOR DRINKING WATER ABSTRACTION 7 4.4 ASSESSMENT OF THE TROPHIC STATE OF SURFACE WATERS 8 4.5 TROPHIC STATE OF THE RIVERS 8 4.6 TROPHIC STATE OF LAKES 33 4.7 CONCLUSION 38 5 REFERENCES AND DATA SOURCES 40 5.1 GENERAL 40 5.2 NITRATE DIRECTIVE 40 5.3 URBAN WASTE WATER TREATMENT DIRECTIVE 41 1 BACKGROUND 1.1 INTRODUCTION This Draft Final Report details the preliminary findings of a project carried out on behalf of the European Commission - DG Environment entitled: Verification of the Vulnerable Zones Identified Under the Nitrates Directive and Sensitive Areas Identified Under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive Contract B4-3040/98/000705/MAR/D1 This report presents the results of the investigations carried out in Austria. The overall co-ordination/management of the study was carried out by ERM in London. The study was conducted by the Institut für Hydraulik und Landeskulturelle Wasserwirtschaft (BOKU - IHLW) in Vienna. 1.2 METHODOLOGY The objective of this study was to verify that those waters that should have been identified according to the Nitrate and Urban Waste Water Directives (with reference to nitrogen and phosphorus) had been. Following initial direct contacts with the Austrian authorities to understand the thinking behind Austrian implementation, data were collected covering the period up to when the decision on designations was taken. These were then used for this verification exercise. Given that Austria has chosen to apply the action programmes under the Nitrate Directive across its whole territory the obligation to designate Vulnerable Zones under the Directive does not exist. For this reason this verification exercise has only examined the designation requirements of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. As the criteria for assessing the trophic status of waters are not explicitly defined in this Directive a surrogate value of total dissolved phosphorus was used for rivers. Whilst this parameter is far from perfect it is the best available. For lakes the assessment of eutrophication by the provincial authorities was used. For each of the areas identified by this study basic background information is provided as well as a more detailed description of the local waste water treatment infrastructure and the trends in total (dissolved) phosphorus content` over time. ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT EUROPEAN COMMISSION - DG ENVIRONMENT 1 2 INTRODUCTION 2.1 ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURES FOR WATER Within the federal structure the federal government is responsible for water policy. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is responsible for setting overall water quality objectives for surface and groundwaters and for standardisation and co-ordination. The Ministry of Health is responsible, given the public health element, for the quality of bathing waters. The monitoring can be loosely separated for the purposes of discussion into that covered by the ”Austrian Water Quality Monitoring System” (AWQMS) and that which is not. Both of these are elaborated in more detail below. The nine provincial authorities generally co-operate closely, particularly in the field of monitoring, where the Federal Environment Agency also plays a significant role. 2.2 WATER QUALITY MONITORING 2.2.1 The Austrian Water Quality Monitoring System (AWQMS) The legislation providing the basis for the AWQMS was adopted in 1990 through an amendment to the Water Act and the Hydrography Act (BGBl. Nr. 252/1990). All basic requirements of this monitoring system are laid down in the Hydrography Act, which provides the legal and financial basis for the establishment of a country-wide, standardised water quality monitoring system covering groundwater and running waters. Details and definitions are listed in the Ordinance on Water Quality Investigation (BGBl. Nr. 338/1991) which also provides for the continuous adaptation of the monitoring programme to detect pollution. The monitoring network is intended to provide information on the current water quality to allow trends to be detected and hence to provide the basis for the establishment of preventive or remediation measures and to monitor their effects. The network is based on uniform principles, for example for site selection and distribution. Standardised methods are used for sampling and analysis. Assessments for groundwater and rivers in the presented study are based on the comprehensive data available from the Austrian Water Quality Monitoring System. Groundwater Groundwater has been periodically sampled for decades in drinking water investigations (ground- and spring water) to ensure good quality. Nationally standardised groundwater quality investigations started in December 1991 following the amendment of the Austrian Water Act (see above). Groundwater quality monitoring is currently carried out at about 2,000 groundwater monitoring sites in tertiary and quaternary sediments and karst ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT EUROPEAN COMMISSION - DG ENVIRONMENT 2 and fissured rocks. The monitoring network for groundwater is designed to monitor adverse impacts from diffuse pollution sources rather than to detect point source impacts. Samples are taken quarterly. Rivers Biological river quality has been investigated since 1962 and results have been published roughly every two years since then. In accordance with the amended Water Act systematic river water quality monitoring began in 1991. Quality monitoring is currently carried out at 244 monitoring stations selected to detect point source inputs. Water samples are taken twelve times per year, sediments and biological material once a year. At some monitoring stations samples are taken 24 times a year because of special bilateral agreements on transboundary water management issues. 2.2.2 Lake Monitoring Some lakes have been continuously investigated since 1960, however no standardised, national water quality monitoring programme currently exists. Lake water quality has frequently been investigated in special provincial monitoring programmes and since 1997 in accordance with the Bathing Water Quality Directive (76/160/EEC). It is planned that lake monitoring will be integrated into the AWQMS in the future. ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT EUROPEAN COMMISSION - DG ENVIRONMENT 3 3 VERIFICATION OF THE DESIGNATION OF VULNERABLE ZONES IDENTIFIED UNDER THE NITRATE DIRECTIVE 3.1 IMPLEMENTATION Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters from pollution by nitrates from agricultural sources came into force on 19.12.1991. Upon accession to the European Union on 1.1.1995 Austria was not granted any derogations in its implementation. As a result, all the deadlines already reached by this time had to be complied with by Austria on this date. The measures in the Directive which are required to have been taken are shown in Table 3.1 below, together with the date on which they were taken. Table 1 Directive requirements and dates for compliance for compliance Directive Requirement Relevant Article Date for Date of Compliance of Directive Compliance Transposition into National Law 12 1. 1. 1995 26. 1. 1996 Elaboration of a Code of Good 4 1. 1. 1995 26. 1. 1996 Agricultural Practice Identification