Transcript Slide 1

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 law
River Basin Districts, competent authorities
Dec 2003

Environmental analysis, economic analysis
Dec 2004

Intercalibration
Monitoring programmes operational
Public participation at the latest
Jun 2006
Dec 2006
Dec 2006

Draft river basin management plans
Dec 2008

Final river basin management plans
Dec 2009

Implementation, assessment, adjustment
- 2015
and further
Where do we stand ?
“WFD Scoreboard”
Country
Austria
Belgium
Cyprus
Czech
Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Trsp
RBD
Rep.
Art5
rep.
J J J
J
K
J K J
Country
Greece
Hungary
J J J
Ireland
J
J
J
J
J
J
Italy
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Trsp
RBD
Rep.
Art5
rep.
K
J
J
J
L
J
J
L
J
J
J
K
J
J
L
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
L
J
J
J
J
J
Country
Poland
Portugal
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
United
Kingdom
Trsp
RBD
Rep.
Art5
rep.
J
K
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
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 checking
Art. 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
Draft map of RBDs
Currently 23 MS:
• 134 RBDs
Norway:
• 14 RBDs
RO, BG, HR:
• 9 RBDs
No double counting:
• 96 RBDs (for 23 MS)
• 69 national
• 27 international
http: //europa.eu.int/
comm/environment/water/
water-framework/transposition.html
5
Frequency of MS
Distribution of number of RBDs
4
3
SPAIN
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Number of RBD
12
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 CAs
10
Number of MS
•
•
•
8
6
SPAIN
MS
4
2
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Number of CA
<2
,5
2,
00
50
05
5,
00 ,000
010 10,
0
,0
00 00
15 15,
0
,0
00 00
20 20,
0
,0
00 00
25 25,
0
,0
00 00
50 50,
00
,0
00
10
10
0,
00 0,00
00
20
20
0,
00 0,00
00
50
0,0
0
>5 0
00
,0
00
Number of RBD
29
4
2
0
RBD size (km2)
Danube
12
Rhine
Distribution of surface areas of RBDs
14
10
8
6
National
International
Compliance checking article 3
Preliminary results (1)
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 (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 Questionnaire
Article 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. methodology
2. data or results
Article 5 reports
first impressions
• 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 compliance checking
First impressions (1)
• 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 (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
Article 5 reports - substance
The analysis is demonstrating your achievements
as well as non-achievements …
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’.
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
Next steps
• 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
Towards
river basin management plans
• Article 5 analysis is based on existing information
• It is only one of the pieces of information needed for the
RBMP
Article 5 analysis
RBD / CA
2004
Monitoring programmes
Intercalibration
2005
2006
RBMP
Cost
recovery
Consultation draft RBMP
2007
2008
Monitoring
data
2009
Public
consultation
RBMP
2010
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 Strategy
Current 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 assessment
all WFD article 3 + 5 reports, and maps
are now available on the Internet
http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/env/wfd/home
Demand and support by citizens
Representative opinion poll,
published April 2005
… for a distinct majority
of citizens in all EU25
countries “water” is,
amongst all
environmental themes,
the most important one.
%
100
80
60
40
20
EU25
LU
NL
CZ
HU
PL
BE
PT
ES
DE
FR
0
… 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.
Thank you
for your attention