From Environmental Assessment To River Basin Management Plans

H. Blöch, European Commission

Water Framework Directive Seminar, Madrid 28 April 2006

Overview

• State of play – implementation to date

• First impressions and conclusions

• Outlook: from first assessment to river basin management plans and their implementation

WFD Implementation Calendar

Formal transposition into national lawRiver Basin Districts, competent authorities Dec 2003

Environmental analysis, economic analysis Dec 2004

Intercalibration Jun 2006Monitoring programmes operational Dec 2006Public participation at the latest Dec 2006

Draft river basin management plans Dec 2008

Final river basin management plans Dec 2009

Implementation, assessment, adjustment - 2015

and further

Germany

France

Finland

Estonia

Denmark

Czech Republic

Cyprus

Belgium

Austria

Art5 rep.

RBD Rep.TrspCountry Country Trsp

RBD Rep.

Art5 rep.

Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxem-bourg Malta Nether-lands

Country TrspRBD Rep.

Art5 rep.

Poland Portugal Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom

Where do we stand ?“WFD Scoreboard”

Status April 2006

http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/water/water-framework/scoreboard.html

Conformity of legal transposition

• External assessments started in March 2005 for EU10 and in Oct 2005 for EU15

• Results for all Member States expected in spring 2006

A number of transpositions already assessed are incomplete

Compliance checkingArt. 3 (2004 report)

• Assessment based on questionnaire/template

• 3 main questions:

• Is it complete?• Is it clear / understandable?• Is it compliant regarding key issues?

• Key issues:

– River Basin District identification (hydrological boundaries, assignment of groundwater and coastal waters)

– Competent Authorities (legal base, clarity of assignment of tasks, coordination mechanism within RBD and MS, relation to other relevant authorities)

– International cooperation(legal base, arrangements for coordination)

• 24 MS reports and summary report available

Currently 23 MS:• 134 RBDsNorway:• 14 RBDsRO, BG, HR:• 9 RBDs

No double counting:• 96 RBDs (for 23 MS)• 69 national• 27 international

Draft map of RBDs

http: //europa.eu.int/ comm/environment/water/water-framework/transposition.html

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MS

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quency o

f M

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• 14 MS have 5 or less RBDs• 5 MS have 10 or more RBDs• UK: 17 RBDs (7 CAs)

• 10 MS have only 1 CA• 5 MS have more than 10 CAs• DK: 17 CAs (13 RBDs)

Distribution of number of RBDs

Distribution of number of CAs

SPAIN

SPAIN

Distribution of surface areas of RBDs

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RBD size (km2)

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International

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29 14

Non-compliance issues

• International cooperation with EU countries or non EU MS not

always considered or discussed

• Set-up of some Competent Authorities is complex; inappropriate

coordination and unclear attribution of responsibilities

Questions for clarification

• Assignment of groundwater to river basin districts unclear• River basin district boundaries (ie. administrative basis rather

than river basins) was not an issue, but sometimes still unclear

• Some digital data sets of poor quality

Compliance checking article 3 Preliminary results (1)

Compliance checking article 3 Preliminary results (2)

• Questions for clarification in all reports,

however relevance and significance of open points varies

• Further in-depth assessment needed and discussion with

MS needed for 9 reports –

non-legal follow up envisaged at the moment

• Assessment reports available – will be sent to MS shortly

• Facts and figures summary will be published in a few

months

Compliance QuestionnaireArticle 5 reports

• Compliance questionnaire based on reporting sheets developed for article 5

• Comparative screening assessment, will be complemented by selected in-depth assessment in a second step

• Three main questions: - complete?- clear / understandable? - compliant on key issues?

• Two parts of conformity:1. methodology2. data or results

• Preliminary compliance assessment available for

13 Member States (not yet Spain)

• Assessment scale

- (national part of) River Basin District (134 reports)

- in addition, assessment on national level or regional level,

where necessary (e.g. BE, DE)

• For these 13 MS, some statistics are

- over 50.000 surface water bodies (SWB)

- 77% of SWB are rivers

- over 4.000 groundwater bodies

Article 5 reports first impressions

• High diversity and different level of detail

60 vs. >10 000 pages

Spain 6 000 pages without coastal waters!

• Several very good examples (international river

basins, even far beyond EU boundaries)

• Many reports are incomplete and not comprehensive

• Methodologies very divers across Europe and rarely

harmonised between national RBD and within int. RBD

• Difficult to extract comparable data for analysis or

compliance checking – need for WISE submissions

Article 5 compliance checking First impressions (1)

Article 5 compliance checking - First impressions (2)

• Some weak points identified:

– economic analysis: e.g. definition of water services

– chemical status: information on dangerous and priority

substances

– agricultural pressures: information on diffuse pollution

– hydromorphological pressures: lack of data

Danube basin - risk analysis organic pollution, nutrient pollution, hydromorphology

18

Danube

basin

countries

DE, CH,

AT, IT, SI,

CZ, SK,

HU, UA,

CRO, BIH,

SM, RO,

BG, MD,

PL, AL,

FYROM

First analysis shows that a high number of water bodies are at risk:

1. Hydromorphological alterations (inter alia from navigation, pressures of land use in urban and rural areas, hydropower, flood defences) are a common concern across Europe.

2. New Member States: waste water treatment as a key challenge

3. Non-delivery on tasks already due (Urban Waste Water Directive, Nitrates Directive) in ‘old’ Member States plays a considerable role in shaping waters ‘at risk’.

Article 5 reports - substanceThe analysis is demonstrating your achievements

as well as non-achievements …

Conclusions

• 90% of reporting obligations fulfilled

• Lack of transposition: application to the Court of Justice; judgements already passed

• Lack of reporting: infringement procedure started

• Assessment of compliance started

• Art 3 compliance checking– draft assessments for 24 out 25 MS– summary report available

• Art 5 compliance checking– draft assessments for half of the 25 MS – summary report for mid-2006– several technical reports finalised (e.g. agriculture, hydromorphology, eutrophication) – only statistics not for compliance checking

• Completion of assessment reports (Art 5 for mid-2006)

• Identify feedback mechanism to MS,

in particular to clarify questions

• Demand for information on comparability of WFD

implementation is increasing (eg. EP, MS, public)

• WISE should be used to improve and update

incomplete/unclear reports

• Official Commission report in March 2007

Next steps

• Article 5 analysis is based on existing information

• It is only one of the pieces of information needed for

the RBMP

Towards river basin management plans

Intercalibration

Monitoring programmes

Consultation draft RBMP

RBMP

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Article 5 analysis

RBD / CA

Monitoringdata

Public consultation

RBMP

Cost recovery

From article 5 reports to draft river basin management plans:

filling information gaps

• Refine Article 5 assessment of risk for those water bodies with insufficient data / under study …

• Design and implement WFD compliant monitoring programmes and classification schemes

• Refine/complete information on pressures

• Refine/complete economic analysis, important for

– justification of exemptions

– HMWB designation

– cost-effectiveness analysis of measures …

– cost-benefit of WFD implementation !

• Make best use of funding instruments – CAP!

• … and more. There is not much time left !

Some risks…

• Monitoring and assessment schemes not in line with

Annex V

– Not covering all biological quality elements and

parameters

– Not intercalibrated

• Scarce economic information to base decisions

• Lack of information for some pressures (fully

addressed for the first time in WFD) should not justify

non-action

• Funding instruments (Cohesion & Structural Funds,

Rural Development Fund) not properly used …

• “Business as usual” should NOT be an option !

Common Implementation StrategyCurrent Work Programme 2005-2006

• Intercalibration• Integration

– Agriculture– Hydromorphology (navigation, hydropower, flood

defence)• Work on environmental objectives and exemptions

– Work is on-going for Article 4.7 – new modifications• Reporting and WISE (Water Information System for

Europe)• Water scarcity

Future Work Programme 2007-2009:Improving comparability

Possible items under consideration / discussion (work programme to be endorsed by Water Directors in November 2006)

• Work to continue on some of the topics– Intercalibration– Environmental objectives and exemptions– Integration– Reporting and WISE

• Emerging issues:– What is a river basin management plan ? – common

understanding ?– Climate change– Water scarcity– Floods– Protected areas

WFD Common Implementation Strategy – an example of Good European Governance

Transparency and assessmentall WFD article 3 + 5 reports, and maps

are now available on the Internet

http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/env/wfd/home

Representative opinion poll, published April 2005

Demand and support by citizens

… for a distinct majority of citizens in all EU25 countries “water” is, amongst all environmental themes, the most important one.

… and an overwhelming majority of citizens in all EU25 expect from policy makers to take protection of the environment as important as economic and social policies.

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Thank youfor your attention