Water is for life:How the Water Framework Directive helps safeguard Europe’s resources doc

Water is for life:How the Water Framework Directive helps safeguard Europe’s resources... Human pressures on the quality of our waters The Water Framework Directive A framework for in

Water is for life:

How the Water Framework Directive helps

safeguard Europe’s resources

More information on the European Union is available on the Internet (http://europa.eu) Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication.

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union

Human pressures on the quality of our waters

The Water Framework Directive

A framework for integrated international cooperation

The Water Framework Directive sets out a clear timetable

River basin management plans

A legal framework integrating relevant EU measures

water.europa.eu/policy

Water is the key to life: a crucial resource for humanity and the rest of the living world Everyone needs it – and not just for drinking

Our rivers, lakes, coastal and marine waters as well as our ground waters are valuable resources to protect

Society uses water to generate and sustain economic

growth and prosperity, through activities such as

farm-ing, commercial fi shfarm-ing, energy production,

manufactur-ing, transport and tourism Water is important in deciding

where we settle and how we use land Water can also be

a source of geo-political confl icts – in particular where

water shortages occur For our own well-being, not only

clean drinking water but also clean water for hygiene and

sanitation is crucial Water is also used for recreational

activities such as bathing, fi shing or just for enjoying the

beauty of coasts, rivers and lakes in nature We expect

clean rivers and coastal waters when we go on holiday,

and we expect an unlimited supply on tap for showers

and baths, washing machines and dishwashers

Water is at the core of natural ecosystems, and climate

reg-ulation The hydrological cycle is the name for the

continu-ous movement of water on, above and below the surface

of the Earth, without beginning or end, changing through

liquid, vapour and ice Although the quantity of water on

Earth remains fairly constant over time, the pattern of

sup-ply is particularly vulnerable to climate change During the

coming century, scientists warn of reduced access to safe

drinking water, as glaciers melt away and drought becomes

more frequent in areas like the Mediterranean This in turn

production At the same time, rainfall and river fl ow terns will change More frequent fl ooding – especially of increasingly populated fl ood plains – will increase damage

pat-to homes, infrastructure and energy supply Flash fl oods are expected to become more frequent across Europe Increased temperatures and reduced availability of water will also reduce water’s cooling capacity for industry and power plants

Water pollution and scarcity pose threats to human health and quality of life But there are also wider eco-logical considerations The free fl ow of water, unaff ected

by pollution, is important to sustaining water-dependent ecosystems A shortage of good-quality water damages aquatic, wetland and terrestrial environments, putting further pressure on fl ora and fauna that are already suff ering the impact of urbanisation and climate change Experts have drawn attention to the value of the ‘ecosys-tem services’ we obtain from the natural world Water is both a provisioning service – a basic material – and one of the regulating services that governs climate and weather and keeps our planet functioning The European Environ-ment Agency estimates that wetlands around the world provide services, such as water purifi cation and carbon absorption, which could be worth €2.5 billion a year Although humanity has long realised its dependence on water, we in Europe are now also becoming more and more aware that the supply is not infi nite, and that we need to value it accordingly Water must be managed and protected It is not merely a consumer product, but

a precious natural resource, vital to future generations as

The importance of water

Ourwaters

The Water Framework

Directive protect areas used for

What is the European Union’s role?

A river basin or a catchment ers the entire river system, from the sources of small tributaries to the estuary, including its ground-water The EU and the Member States have divided the river basins and associ-ated coastal areas into 110 river basin districts,

cov-40 of which are international and cross borders, covering

about 60% of EU territory For example, the Vistula and

Oder drain more than 95% of Polish territory But rivers

do not stop at national frontiers – they fl ow on through

diff erent countries to reach the sea All EU Member States

apart from islands like Cyprus and Malta share waters with neighbouring countries

Catchment areas can be very large, or quite small The Danube’s international river basin district (IRBD), for example, is the largest in the EU, spanning 801 463 km² and touching ten Member States and nine neighbouring countries By contrast, the Hérault in the south of France covers 2 900 km²

These waters can only be safeguarded if all the tries and regions involved work together and share the responsibility That is why an EU framework for action in the fi eld of water policy is needed, and agreement and action at river basin district level is essential

coun-Managing water resources is also a complex process, which involves many diff erent players, such as diff erent levels of government, diff erent economic actors, and the public Addressing all types of potentially polluting and damaging activities as well as all uses of water is therefore crucial

In 2000, the EU took a groundbreaking step when it adopted the Water Framework Directive, establishing a

legal obligation to protect and restore the quality of waters across Europe The Directive introduced an innovative approach to water management, based not on national administrative or political boundaries, but on natural geo-graphical and hydrological formations: the river basins It also requires coordination of diff erent Community policies

in a framework for action Furthermore, it sets out a cise timetable for action, with 2015 as the target date for

pre-Europe’s river basin districts

(pink denotes international river basin district)

60°E 50°E

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Canaries (ES)

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km

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SE SE

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a u g a v a

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Lielupe Venta Gauja

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DE

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AT DE

HU

SI

CZ AT

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NL FR NL

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FR LU BE NL

BE

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SambreFRSc

ld t

M eu se

Seine

CZ PL PL

FR

SI

SK SK

MD UA BY BY RU

BY RU NO

CH CH CH

Warnow/

Peene

Weser

Solway Tweed North- umbria

Humber

Anglian

Thames South East South West Severn Dee South Eastern N

rn s W

er n

South Western

Glomma

Buskerud, Vestfold and Telemark Agder Counties and Rogaland

Hordaland, Sogn and Fjordane

Moere and Romsdal

N o rd n

Troms

F i n n m a r k

West Estonia

K e m i j o k i

Iijoki

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of the Water Framework Directive

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Version 22/03/2007

Skagerrak and Kattegat

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Schlei/

Trave

1) Map based largely on submissions of digital River Basin Districts (RBDs) from EU Member States and Norway.

4) Coastal waters are defined in the Water Framework Directive (WFD) as extending 1 nautical mile from the coastline However, some Member States have included a larger part of their coastal waters within the RBD boundaries.

2) Some of the international RBDs shown on this map were not identified as being international by the Member States, i.e the Adour-Garonne, Rhone and Seine in France; the Vistula in Poland; the Kemijoki and Vuoksi in Finland.

Both the German Eider and Schlei/Trave RBDs are shared with the Danish International RBD.

Part of the Italian Eastern Alps RBD is shared with the Slovenian Adriatic RBD.

It is understood that the Tornionjoki international RBD in Finland is shared with Sweden, most likely with part and Bothnian Bay have been kept separate in this map.

The delineation of the Finnmark RBD between Norway and Finland is currently under review.

Ebro

Galicia

Jucar

Segura Guadalquivir

Ba ricIsla

ES ES ES ES

Footnotes:

BE

Basque country

Ca talo nia

Algarve

3) These are the boundaries of the river catchments extending beyond the EU27 border They have been derived from the Catchment Characterisation and Modelling (CCM) database, developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), except the boundaries for the Danube international RBD which were supplied by the International Commission for the Protection

of the Danube River (ICPDR).

PL PL

UA

RU UK

4 UK IE UK

IE E

rn 1

MK BG RS

AL

RU RU

JarftPL

UckerPLSwieza

PL

9 10 8 7 5 6 3

2 EL

12

Southern Appen ines

Central Appenines

ni nes

Po

Serchio IT

Coastal Waters (4)

Map produced by WRc, UK on behalf of European Commission , DG Environment, March 2007 c

1 2 3

EU27 boundary

East Aegean We st Ae an

Western Macedonia 2

Thessalia 4 Epirus 3

Western Sterea Ellada 5

Eastern Sterea Ellada 6

Attica 7

Northern Peloponnese 9 Western Peloponnese 10 Eastern Peloponnese Crete 11

Aegean Islands 12

SE NO

NO SE

13 14

13

Thrace Eastern Macedonia

Greek RBDs

Ep irus

Central

Ma cedonia Western Macedonia

Eastern Alps

(1)

RS

North Western 1

Northern Irish RBDs

Danish RBDs

Shannon 4 North Eastern 3 Neagh Bann 2

Jutland and Funen 1 Zealand 2 Bornholm

4 Danish International RBD 3

LT

Azores (PT)

0 100 km

Andaa Atlan tic

T e

la g

C o tie s

Human pressures on the quality of our waters and impacts on the environment

Signifi cant water management issues

Within the EU, water is distributed unevenly due to geographical and cli-matic variations Ireland’s lush greenery is the

result of frequent rainfall sweeping in from the Atlantic,

whereas Mediterranean countries can suff er months of

summer drought, creating the conditions for dangerous

forest fi res Europe is also starting to confront changed

and intensifi ed patterns of fl ooding, for instance fl ash

fl oods Expected sea level rise will put further pressure

on coastal areas

Demand for water is growing everywhere: in the house

and garden, for industry, agriculture and irrigation,

lei-sure and tourism In the south, rapid tourist development

has increased pressure on water, leading to

over-exploi-tation, and sometimes to desertifi cation and salt-water

intrusion in coastal freshwater zones

Pressures on water quality come mainly from households, industry, and agriculture, which uses and discharges polluting chemicals and nutrients Key driving forces, for instance, are urban developments, fl ood defences, power generation (e.g hydropower), navigation, recrea-tion, wastewater discharge, coastal defences, freshwater

fi shing, mining, and forestry

Water scarcity: Europe is not widely regarded as an arid

continent, so it may be surprising to know that nearly half the EU’s population lives in ‘water-stressed’ countries, where the abstraction of water from existing freshwater sources is too high Water scarcity aff ects 33 EU river basins

Pollution is another serious problem Hazardous

chem-icals fi nd their way into European waters from a variety of point or diff use sources, including industrial plants, farm-land, and landfi ll sites Endocrine disruptors are espe-cially worrying as they can interfere with the hormonal

Withuneve

In Europe:

 Only 30% of surface water and 25% of groundwater is not at serious risk from pollution and other changes

 60% of European cities over-exploit their groundwater resources

 50% of wetlands are endangered due to over-exploitation of groundwater

 Since 1985, the area of irrigated land in southern Europe has risen by 20%

Key facts on water

systems of living organisms, including humans Other

pollutants include organophosphorus compounds,

metals and materials in suspension

High concentrations of sewage or fertilisers in water

sys-tems can cause eutrophication, promoting the growth

of weeds that disrupt normal ecosystems, deprive fi sh of

oxygen and interfere with water treatment Waters choked

with algae turn cloudy and discoloured, losing their

aes-thetic appeal and recreational function as well as posing

risks to health There are signs of eutrophication in some

40% of European rivers and lakes, as well as coastal waters

Morphological changes – such as the building of dams,

reservoirs and irrigation systems – can also cause

dam-age by changing water levels, placing obstacles in the

way of the natural fl ow of the rivers and thereby

destroy-ing ecosystems or cuttdestroy-ing off natural fl ood plains from

water courses

Other examples of ecological impacts are temperature

changes, for instance due to the use of water for cooling

purposes, and the increasing presence of alien species in

our waters

There is much that can be done to improve the quality and quantity of our water Measures range from

infl uencing consumer behaviour so as to minimise the use of chemicals and save resources, to changing land

use and agricultural practices governing crop choices and irrigation, pollution control, restoring wetlands, and

other mitigation measures

The Water Framework Directive requires Member States to identify signifi cant water management issues and

hold extensive consultations with the public and interested parties to identify fi rst the problems, and then the

solutions, to be included in river basin management plans

Solving the problems

Pressure on water resources is increasing the risk of drought in some areas

History

European water legislation dates back to the latter half of the 1970s, when the fi rst ‘wave’ of laws set stand-ards and targets for discharges of dangerous substances, drinking water, fi shing waters, shellfi sh

waters, bathing waters and groundwater, designed to

protect human health and the environment A 1988

review identifi ed gaps to be fi lled, leading to further

measures obliging Member States to control sewage

from urban areas, nitrogen fertilisers from farmland, and

pollution from factories and industrial plants:

 1991: Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive and

Nitrates Directive

 1996: Directive for Integrated Pollution and

Preven-tion Control (IPPC)

 1998: Drinking Water Directive

Nonetheless, it was becoming clear that the EU needed

a more coherent approach to water policy So the

Com-mission launched an ambitious consultation process,

gathering the opinions not only of Member States,

the European Parliament and experts, but also of local

and regional authorities, NGOs and environmentalists,

industry and utility providers, community groups and

individuals

The outcome was the 2000 Water Framework Directive

(WFD), one of the most ambitious and comprehensive

pieces of EU legislation ever Subsequently, a number

of acts have been adopted to complete the legal work: on chemical pollution of surface waters, ground-water protection, and how to establish ecological status Two other important pieces of legislation extend the scope of holistic and integrated water policy: the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC) and the Floods Direct ive (2007/60/EC)

frame-Main objectives

The Framework Directive is built on four main pillars:

1 Coordinated action to achieve ‘good status’ for all

EU waters, including surface and groundwater,

by 2015

2 Setting up a water-management system based on natural river basin districts, crossing regional and national boundaries

3 Integrated water management, bringing diff erent water management issues into one framework

4 Active involvement of interested parties and sultation of the public

con-It covers groundwater and all surface waters including rivers, lakes, coastal waters and ‘transitional waters’, such

as estuaries that connect fresh and saltwater It sets a less ambitious objective – ‘good potential’ – for artifi cial and ‘heavily modifi ed’ bodies of water such as canals and reservoirs, or industrial ports It also streamlines EU legis-lation by replacing seven of the ‘fi rst wave’ Directives, and incorporating their provisions into a more coherent framework

The Water Framework Directive

– an EU water policy framework

The defi nition of ecological status

is based on the quality of the logical community, naturally vary-ing in diff erent parts of the EU It takes into account specifi c aspects such as the abundance of aquatic fl ora or fi sh fauna Quality

bio-elements aff ecting fi sh and aquatic fl ora, such as the

avail-ability of nutrients, as well as elements like salinity,

tem-perature and pollution by other chemical pollutants have

to be monitored Importantly, morphological features like

quantity, water fl ow, water depths and structures of the

river beds are also part of what defi nes ecological status

The WFD classifi cation scheme for surface water

eco-logical status includes fi ve status categories: high, good,

moderate, poor and bad

‘High status’ is defi ned as the biological, chemical and

morphological conditions associated with no or very low

human pressure This is also called the ‘reference

condi-tion’ as it is the best status achievable – the benchmark

Reference conditions vary for diff erent types of rivers,

lakes or coastal waters

Quality is assessed by the extent of deviation from these

reference conditions ‘Good status’ means ‘slight’ deviation,

‘moderate status’ means ‘moderate’ deviation, and so on

According to the Article 5 reports (2004), a total of 70 000

surface water bodies were identifi ed in the EU: 80% of

them rivers, 15% lakes and 5% coastal and transitional

waters Member States can designate diff erent water

may change The diagram below applies to a river with high-quality water at its source, which gradually becomes more polluted downstream

To defi ne good chemical status, environmental

qual-ity standards have been established for 33 new priorqual-ity substances, and eight previously regulated substances,

to be measured in water, sediment or biota These are the chemical pollutants identifi ed to be of high concern across the EU In this context the WFD is backed up by other EU environmental legislation on pollution control, such as the REACH regulation and the IPPC The Commis-sion will regularly review the list of substances, and new substances may be added in the future

The rules for groundwater are slightly diff erent

Mem-ber States must use geological data to identify distinct volumes of water in underground aquifers Quantity is a major issue, and the law limits abstraction to a portion

of the annual recharge Groundwater should not be luted at all, so the WFD adopts a precautionary approach

pol-to protecting groundwater from contamination by hibiting direct discharges Any increase in pollution must

pro-be detected and measures taken to prevent it

One of the Directive’s environmental objectives is that

Environmental objectives:

what is good ecological and chemical status?

Tisloing in into accoabundance o

elements aff ecting fi sh a

Monitoring is the main

tool for gauging the tus of waters The WFD obliged Member States to set

sta-up or adapt monitoring

proce-dures by December 2006 It is a

complex task, comprising three elements:

long-term trends

progress in improving water quality

 Investigative monitoring entails deeper

research, for example on specifi c

hazards

In addition, monitoring hydromorphology

means tracing the physical shape and fl ow

of river systems Across the EU there are

more than 54 000 surface-water monitoring

stations, and over 51 000 for groundwater

However, the density varies considerably

between Member States

To lay the foundations for comparing data, in

2003-2007, EU scientists undertook an

inter-calibration exercise This uniquely ambitious

and complex project sets the boundaries for

‘good status’, by making comparable results

of diff erent countries’ assessment systems

Defi ning and monitoring the status of surface and groundwaters

obl

up or

60° E 50° E 40° E

30° E 30° E

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-10° W -20° W -30° W

Surface water monitoring stations

Submissions in accordance with Article 8 of the Water Framework Directive

Version March 2009

Map produced by WRc plc on behalf of the European Commission , DG Environment, 2009 c

0 100 200 300 400 km

km Madeira (PT)

Canaries (ES)

km Guadeloupe (FR)

Coastal water monitoring stations

Greece has not reported on its monitoring programmes under Article 8.

The river basin approach is the best and most cost-eff ective way to manage water Long-

in the Elbe, Danube and Rhine basins – where countries worked together to meet joint objectives – has demonstrated its potential Isolated

measures to improve water quality cannot be successful

without taking account of what happens upstream and

downstream Integrated river basin management adopts

a holistic approach to protecting the whole body of water,

its source, tributaries, delta and river mouth It tackles

pressures and risks through a co ordinated strategy, erating solidarity and involving all the interested parties in decision-making Indeed, public participation is a corner-stone of the WFD, so European citizens are playing a cru-cial role in planning and implementing measures

gen-The Directive also links other important water-relevant policies into one integrated framework, covering issues such as industrial pollution, major accidents, and impact assessments

A framework for integrated international cooperation across the catchments and coastal areas

The Danube river basin district illustrates the variety of waters within one river basin It includes mountain streams in the Carpathians and the Alps, groundwater bodies, a vast delta, and the Black Sea coastal waters International cooperation around this crucial waterway has a long tradition The fi rst free navigation treaty was concluded in 1856, and in 1994,

14 countries and the EU got together to sign the International Convention on the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) The ICPDR published a river basin management plan for all of the Danube in December 2009 (http://www.icpdr.org/participate/danube_river_basin_management_plan), the so-called Roof Report for the river basin, and Parties

to the Convention are expected to provide more detailed national plans To prepare this, the ICPDR Secretariat based

in Vienna (Austria) helped coordinate Danube-wide expert groups on issues such as river basin planning, pressures and measures, monitoring and assessment, information management, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and economics, as well as on fl oods

Key water management issues in the Danube are nutrient pollution as well as organic pollution To tackle eutrophication the Danube plan proposed a basin-wide ban on phosphate in detergents, and in particular in the lower region, continued development of wastewater treatment is crucial Morphological changes, to facilitate navigation, fl ood defence and power generation, are also causing a problem for migrating fi sh along the river, notably the sturgeon

Case study: the Danube River

stan

in the