from environmental assessment to river basin management plans
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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 - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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From Environmental Assessment To River Basin Management Plans
H. Blöch, European Commission
Water Framework Directive Seminar, Madrid 28 April 2006
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Overview
• State of play – implementation to date
• First impressions and conclusions
• Outlook: from first assessment to river basin management plans and their implementation
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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0
2
4
6
8
10
12
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Number of CA
Num
ber of
MS
MS
0
1
2
3
4
5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Number of RBD
Fre
quency o
f M
S
• 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
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Distribution of surface areas of RBDs
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
<2,
500
2,50
0-5,
000
5,00
0-10
,000
10,0
00-1
5,00
0
15,0
00-2
0,00
0
20,0
00-2
5,00
0
25,0
00-5
0,00
0
50,0
0-10
0,00
0
100,
000-
200,
000
200,
000-
500,
000
>50
0,00
0
RBD size (km2)
Nu
mb
er
of
RB
D
National
International
Dan
ub
e
Rh
ine
29 14
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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)
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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
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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
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• 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
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• 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)
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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
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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
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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 …
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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
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• 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
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• 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
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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 !
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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 !
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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
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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
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WFD Common Implementation Strategy – an example of Good European Governance
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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
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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.
0
20
40
60
80
100
FR DE
ES PT
BE PL
HU CZ
NL
LU
EU
25
%
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Thank youfor your attention