EU Requirements Regarding Water Management

1. EU Requirements Regarding Water Management By Dr. Patrick Reynolds

2. Presentation Contents • Management of waters in the EU: History and current situation. • Future challenges and issues related to water management in BiH.

3. Consultants Experience • Technical assistance related to implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive in the region since 2002. • Team Leader for International Transboundary Water management: Vardar/Axios (Macedonia/Greece); Mesta/Nestos (Bulgaria/Greece); Arda/Ardas (Bulgaria/Greece); Black Sea/Danube GEF/UNDP Project and DABLAS Taskforce. • Experienced in aerobic and anaerobic wastewater systems, landfill management, ecotoxicology, detergents, water quality objectives, climate change, biodegradation of chemicals.

4. Brief History • Early European water legislation began with standards for those rivers and lakes used for drinking water abstraction in 1975, and culminated in 1980 in setting binding quality targets for drinking water. • Quality objective legislation was also introduced on fish waters, shellfish waters, bathing waters and groundwaters. • The main emission control element was the Dangerous Substances Directive.

5. Addressing pollution from Urban Centers and Agriculture • In 1988 the Frankfurt ministerial seminar on water reviewed the existing legislation and identified a number of improvements: • The Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, providing for secondary (biological) waste water treatment, and even more stringent treatment where necessary (point source pollution) • The Nitrates Directive, addressing water pollution by nitrates from agriculture (diffuse pollution) • Commission proposals for action on a new Drinking Water Directive and a Directive for Integrated Pollution and Prevention Control (IPPC).

6. Birth of the Water Framework Directive • In 1995-6, a consultation process carried out by the the Commission, ending in a conference in which shaped the way forward for a new EU Water Policy • 250 delegates including representatives of Member States, regional and local authorities, enforcement agencies, water providers, industry, agriculture and, not least, consumers and environmentalists. • All parties agreed on the need for a single piece of framework legislation to resolve these problems.

7. Key Aims of the Water Framework Directive • Expanding the scope of water protection to all waters, surface waters, groundwater and coastal waters • To achieve "good status" for all waters by a set deadline • Water management based on “river basins” • Use of a “combined approach" of emission limit values and quality standards • Getting the prices right • Getting the citizen involved more closely • Streamlining legislation

8. A Single System of Water Management • Best model for a single system of water management is management by river basin - the natural geographical and hydrological unit - instead of according to administrative or political boundaries. • Early initiatives Maas include the Schelde or Rhine river basins serving as positive examples of this approach, with their cooperation and joint objective-setting across Member State borders, or even beyond the EU territory. • For each river basin district, a "river basin management plan" will need to be established and updated every six years.

9. Co-ordination of Objectives • General protection of the aquatic ecology, specific protection of unique and valuable habitats, protection of drinking water resources, and protection of bathing waters. • All these objectives must be integrated for each river basin. • Special habitats: wetlands; those identified for drinking water abstraction; those generally used as bathing areas. • In contrast, ecological protection should apply to all waters.

10. Surface Water: Ecological Protection • A general requirement for ecological protection, and a general minimum chemical standard, was introduced to cover all surface waters. • Good ecological status is defined in terms of the quality of the biological community, the hydrological characteristics and the chemical characteristics. • Controls are specified as allowing only a slight departure from the biological community which would be expected in conditions of minimal anthropogenic impact. • Each Member State interprets the procedure in a consistent way (to ensure comparability)

11. Surface Water: Chemical Protection • Good chemical status is defined in terms of compliance with all the quality standards established for chemical substances at European level. • The Directive also provides a mechanism for renewing these standards and establishing new ones by means of a prioritisation mechanism for hazardous chemicals. • Aim to ensure at least a minimum chemical quality, particularly in relation to very toxic substances, everywhere in the Community.

12. Surface Water: Other uses • Designation of specific protection zones • Where more stringent requirements are needed for particular uses, zones to be established and higher objectives set within them. • Uses which adversely affect the status of water but which are considered essential on their own terms: • Flood protection and essential drinking water supplies • Navigation and power generation • Derogations from the requirement to achieve good status. : that the alternatives are technically impossible, that they are prohibitively expensive, or that they produce a worse overall environmental result

13. Groundwater: Chemical Status • Broadly be that it should not be polluted at all. For this reason, setting chemical quality standards may not be the best approach, as it gives the impression that there is an allowed level of pollution to which Member States can reach. • Few standards have been established at the European level for particular issues (nitrates, pesticides and biocides) • General protection approach is a precautionary one • prohibition on direct discharges to groundwater, and to cover indirect discharges • a requirement to monitor groundwater bodies to detect changes in chemical composition, and to reverse any antropogenically induced upward pollution trend

14. Groundwater: Quantitative Status • Directive limits abstraction to that quantity of the overall recharge not needed to support connected ecosystems (whether they be surface water bodies, or terrestrial systems) can be abstracted, i.e. the sustainable resource. • WFD provides a framework for integrated management of groundwater and surface water for the first time at European level.

15. River Basin Planning Ecological objectives Integration of surface waters & groundwater Protect and enhance the status of the water environment Promote sustainable water use

16. Two New Types of Waterbodies to Consider • An Artificial Water Body(AWB)means a “body of surface water created by human activity” (WFD Article 2(8)). • A Heavily Modified Water Body (HMWB) means a “body of surface water which as a result of physical alterations by human activity is substantially changed in character” (WFD Article 2(9)) .

17. Coordination of Measures • Objectives are established for the river basin. • Analysis of human impact is conducted so as to determine how far from the objective each body of water is. • The effect on the problems of each body of water of full implementation of all existing legislation is considered. • If the existing legislation solves the problem, well and good, and the objective of the Framework Directive is attained. • If not, the Member State must identify exactly why, and design whatever additional measures are needed to satisfy all the objectives established.

18. The Combined Approach • There has been a dichotomy in approach to pollution control at European level, • some controls concentrating on what is achievable at source, through the application of technology; and some dealing with the needs of the receiving environment in the form of quality objectives • Both have potential flaws: • Source controls alone can allow a cumulative pollution load which is severely detrimental to the environment • Quality standards can underestimate the effect of a particular substance on the ecosystem - poor knowledge regarding dose-response relationships and transport in situ.

19. The River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) • RBMP is a detailed account of how the objectives set for the river basin (ecological status, quantitative status, chemical status and protected area objectives) are to be reached within the timescale required. • The plan includes: • the river basin's characteristics, • a review of the impact of human activity on the status of waters in the basin, • estimation of the effect of existing legislation and the remaining "gap" to meeting these objectives; • a set of measures designed to fill the gap

20. The River Basin Planning Process

21. Monitoring • To provide a coherent & comprehensive overview of water status within the River Basin District and permit the classification of surface water bodies into one of five classes. • 3 levels of monitoring • Surveillance • Operational • Investigative

22. Surveillance Monitoring • Sufficient water bodies included to provide an assessment of the overall surface water status supplement and validate risk assessment • Assessment of long term change • Covers all quality elements • Provide information for efficient and effective design of future monitoring

23. Operational Monitoring • Establish the status of those water bodies identified as being at risk of failing to meet their environmental objectives • Will provide data for Environmental Quality Ratios • Assess any changes in the status of such bodies resulting from the programme of measures • Monitor elements most sensitive to the pressures on water body • Sufficient sites to assess magnitude and impact of pressure

24. Investigative Monitoring • Undertaken when the reasons for failure (of Environmental Objectives) are unknown • Ascertain cause of water body failure • Magnitude and impact of pollution incidents

25. The River Basin Management Plan: Economics • Economic analysis of water use within the river basin must be carried out. • This is to enable there to be a rational discussion on the cost-effectiveness of the various possible measures. • It is essential that all interested parties are fully involved in this discussion, and indeed in the preparation of the river basin management plan as a whole. • WFD combines the approach of economics with respect to: • Degree and sectoral scope for recovery, and • An element in the decision making process and as a tool for the achievement of the set objectives. 

26. Getting the Costs and Charges Correct • Adequate water pricing acts as an incentive for the sustainable use of water resources and thus helps to achieve the environmental objectives under the Directive. • Member States will be required to ensure that the price charged to water consumers - such as for the abstraction and distribution of fresh water and the collection and treatment of waste water - reflects the true costs 

27. Programme of measures • Current regime of discharge and abstraction control will continue • Programme of measures requires use of measures under other directives • e.g. Urban Waste-water treatment, Nitrates, IPPC etc • Will require additional measures to achieve Good status • e.g. economic instruments, codes of good practice, recreation and restoration of wetlands, control of diffuse pollution • Integration of planning • Catchment Abstraction Management, Flood Defence Catchment Management

28. Public Participation • Two reason for Involving the Public: • Inclusivity: Decisions on the most appropriate measures to achieve the objectives in the river basin management plan will involve balancing the interests of various groups • Enforceability: The greater the transparency in the establishment of objectives, the imposition of measures, and the reporting of standards, the greater the care Member States will take to implement the legislation in good faith, and the greater the power of the citizens to influence the direction of environmental protection, whether through consultation or, if disagreement persists, through the complaints procedures and the courts.

29. SAVA River Basin – Gaps in RBMP • Surface Waters • Lack of water quality monitoring data • Lack of Biological monitoring data • Lack of data on hydromorphology and hydromorphological changes • No harmonisation on typology and water body delineation • Late start on typology process and definition of reference conditions • Lack of data for assessment of impacts

30. SAVA River Basin – Gaps in RBMP • Groundwaters • Lack of groundwater quality and quantity data • Lack of data on drinking water supply systems and protection zones • Lack of data on water balance groundwaters • Lack of data on connection between groundwater bodies • Lack of data on influence of different pressures to the groundwater bodies

31. Future Issues and Challenges • Climate change • EU’s water privatization plans • Institutional arrangements and coordination • Coordinated actions of donors and banks

32. Thank You for Listening