| | | 16.1 Introduction |
The Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) creates a new legislative framework to manage, use, protect, and restore surface and ground water resources within the river basins (or catchment areas) and in the transitional (lagoons and estuaries) and coastal waters in the European Union (EU). The WFD aims to achieve sustainable management of water resources, to reach good ecological quality and prevent further deterioration of surface- and ground waters, and to ensure sustainable functioning of aquatic ecosystems (and dependent wetlands and terrestrial systems). The environmental objectives (WFD, article 2), i.e. the good ecological quality of natural water bodies and good ecological potential of heavily modified and artificial water bodies should be reached in 2015. The implementation timetable requires several intermediate steps in the fulfilment of the technical specifications outlined in the Annexes of the WFD, first of those are already due to end of 2004 (i.e. requirements of the Article 5: Analysis of river basins characteristics, pressures and impacts, and economic analysis).
The overall complexity of the WFD and a very tight implementation timetable create challenges for the fulfilment of the requirements. Moreover, after the potential enlargement of the EU in 2004, the new Member States will have to implement the WFD in full, meaning that they have the same obligations and timetable as the old Member States. Therefore the European Commission and the Member States started a Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) in 2001 [12]. This has resulted in a number of guidance documents, where the various technical issues related to the WFD implementation requirements are interpreted according to the common understanding of the Member States [13][17][14][16][18]. The guidance documents are based on large number of preparatory documents and expert meetings where various issues were discussed and agreed. They are not legally binding, but present examples of best practises and common understanding of the legal requirements, which may be referred in the future as correct interpretations of the legal implementation requirements.
The WFD stipulates that the ecological status of the surface water is defined as "... an expression of the quality of the structure and functioning of aquatic ecosystems associated with surface waters, classified in accordance with Annex V." (WFD, Article 2: 21). This implies that classification systems for the ecological status should evaluate how the structure of the biological communities and the overall ecosystem functioning are altered in response to anthropogenic pressures (e.g. nutrient loading, acidification, exposure to toxic and hazardous substances, physical habitat alterations, etc.). Such requirements are a novel approach in the European water policy, which has been mostly based on the regulation of emissions at the source through the establishment of emission limit values (ELV), rather than on the regulation of the allowed impacts on the recipient ecosystems. Nature conservation legislation such as the 'Birds Directive' (79/409/EEC) and the 'Habitats Directive' (92/43/EEC) have established a legislative framework for protecting and conserving Europe's wildlife and habitats (creation of a coherent ecological network of protected areas across the EU - NATURA 2000). The Nitrates (91/676/EEC) and Urban Waste Water Treatment (91/271/EEC) Directives already included the requirement for the assessment of the vulnerability/ sensitivity of the recipient surface waters to pollution (mostly caused by nitrogen and phosphorus compounds). However, the criteria how the sensitivity should be assessed are subject to different interpretations by the Member States, and the directives do not include any mechanism to harmonize these interpretations.
In this chapter we will discuss the novel approach required by the WFD for a EU wide classification of the ecological quality of surface waters and the requirement for the harmonisation of the classification systems. We will also highlight management implications and some research needs, and review of the WFD legal text and the relevant CIS guidance documents. We present and analyse the agreed approaches outlined in the WFD CIS guidance documents, and discuss the potential problems and benefits of those approaches.
| | | 16.1 Introduction |