1. Water Framework Directive implementation: RBMP assessment
Marta Moren Abat
Water Ressources Unit D1
Directorate General for Environment
European Commission

2. Assessment of the RBMPs reported by Member States
River Basin Management Plans reported under the Water Framework Directive
Commission first assessment based on reported RBMP + WISE + background docs
Commission informal feedback
Further clarification from MS

3. Commission Report on WFD implementation
Communication on Report on RBMPs assessment (15 pages, all languages)
Commission Staff Working Document
Main report presenting assessment and recommendations at EU level and comparative analysis
1 Annex per Member State presenting the assessment and recommendations per country

4. Assessment River Basin Management Plans: Some general preliminary findings
A lot of effort put into preparation of the plans
High uptake of the common framework and common language on water management provided by the WFD
Integration of ecological perspective into water management
Enhancement of international cooperation
Public participation, stakeholder involvement
Impressive improvement in the knowledge base
4 Member States yet to submit plans
Low ambition in many of the plans (extensive use of exemptions)
Lack of concrete measures and low ambition
Lack of comparability in some areas (e.g. chemical status!)
Dressing “business-as-usual” as WFD
Little understanding on aligning water management practices and environment protection
Insufficient consideration of water pricing 4

5. Status of adoption of WFD plans
GREEN - River Basin Management Plans adopted!
RED – consultations not started or ongoing

6. Status of surface waters
Figure on the left: Distribution of ecological status or potential of classified rivers, lakes, coastal and transitional waters, calculated as percentage of the total number of classified water bodies. It shows the distribution of ecological status or potential for the different types of water bodies (rivers, lakes, transitional and coastal). Overall, more than half (55 %) of the total number of classified surface water bodies in Europe are reported to have less than good ecological status/potential. Only around 44% of rivers and 33% of transitional waters are reported to be in high or good status. 56% of the lakes are reported to be in good or high status, and 51% for coastal waters.
Figure on the right: Overview of chemical status of surface and groundwater bodies Percentage of rivers, lakes, groundwater, transitional and coastal waters in good, poor and unknown chemical status
There is a high percentage of water bodies for which the reported chemical status has been 'unknown' .
In many cases, the main reason for this gap is that the status assessment methods have not been fully developed yet or there were not enough monitoring data in this first cycle. In that case, it is advisable to adopt and implement no-regret measures, along with further development of the assessment methods and monitoring networks. However, in most RBMPs, there is no information on what actions will be taken to improve the monitoring and assessment methods for the next cycles.
Note: Number of Member States contributing to the dataset: Groundwater (26); Rivers (25); Lakes (22); Transitional (15) and Coastal (20). Percentages shown for rivers, lakes, transitional and coastal are by water body count. Groundwater percentages, however, are expressed by area. The total number of water bodies is shown in parenthesis.
Data from Sweden are excluded from surface water data illustrated in the figure. This is because Sweden contributed a disproportionately large amount of data and, classified all its surface waters as poor status since levels of mercury found within biota in both fresh and coastal waters exceed quality standards.

7. A lot has been achieved, but challenges remain
Significant pressures (rivers)
Significant impacts (rivers)
Source: EEA
Source: EEA

8. Starting point and ambition
Good Ecological Status
Unknown Ecological Status
Starting point and ambition
Exemptions
Source:
WFD Reporting

11. Water bodies in good status in 2009 and 2015
Nb of MS
Nb of water bodies
% Water bodies in good status or potential 2009
% Water bodies in good status or potential 2015
Progress in %
Ecological status of surface waters 21
82684 42 52 10
Chemical status of surface waters
Information unclear to establish the 2009 baseline
Quantitative status of groundwater 24
12022 (5197)
89 (85)
96 (92)
7 (7)
Chemical status of groundwater1 3
2477
83 (68)
89 (77)
6 (9)

12. Preliminary General conclusions
Impressive improvement in the knowledge base on water status
Increased transparency in setting objectives and managing water
The ecological perspective is generally now firmly integrated into the assessment of the status of surface waters and has become an integral part of water management
However, still areas where additional guidance may be needed (e.g. chemical status, costs and benefits analysis, hydro-morphology, exemptions, etc)
the assessment shows the need of a determined effort to ensure achievement of WFD objectives in 2015, 2021 and 2027 cycles.

13. Preliminary General Conclusions
Setting the PoM: This requires a better understanding of costs of inaction and benefits of measures, and a consistent assessment framework at EU level
The strength of the planning process, and the adequacy and reliability of the RBMPs depends upon good implementation of every intermediate step.
Integration EU-wide, national and local scale/tools
Improve quality of reporting

14. Follow up
Ensuring correct implementation of WFD in first and second RBMP period (Follow up RBMP assessment)
Follow up bilaterally
Possible legal action
Common Implementation Strategy (delivery of Blueprint policy options)
Assessment of PoM and integration WFD and FD
2019 review WFD

15. Summary of details of the RBMPs assessment
1- Typology
2 - Monitoring
3 - Assessment of ecological status
4 – Assessment of chemical status
5 – Designation of HMWB
6 – Exemptions

16. 1 -Typology: Overview of the number of types reported per water category and Member State
Typology of surface waters
Only 50% of the RBMPs assessed indicate that the typology for rivers has been validated against biological data. Lakes, transitional and coastal waters are 44%, 10% and 17% respectively.
The WFD establishes that type-specific reference conditions have to be defined considering Hydromorphological and physico-chemical representing the values of the hydro-morphological and physic-chemical quality elements specified.

17. 1-Testing of typology against biological data

18. 1- Types of methods used to establish reference conditions

19. 1 - Methods used to establish reference conditions for surface waters

20. 2 - Monitoring of SW and GW

21. 2 - Percentage of surface water bodies in surveillance monitoring in which all relevant biological quality elements are monitored.
Member States have to establish monitoring programmes for the assessment of the status of surface water and of groundwater for a coherent and comprehensive overview of water status within each RBD
The results of monitoring play a key role in determining whether water bodies are in good status and what measures need to be included in the RBMP in order to reach good status
DK, HU, IE, LT, LV, PL and SK data not supplied at station level

22. 2 - Surveillance Monitoring of hydromorphological quality elements

23. 2 - Surveillance Monitoring of Physico- chemical quality elements

24. 2 - Number of International River Basin Districts where there are transboundary surface water monitoring programmes in place.
89 Transboundary RBD reported in WISE

25. 3 - Assessment of ecological status
Fully WFD-compliant assessment methods were not in place for all BQEs for the first RBMPs.
Thus, in many Member States, the assessment of ecological status in this first cycle of RBMPs was based on pressure and impact data rather than on biological monitoring data for a large proportion of water bodies
Some of the gaps can be scientifically justified, e.g. too high variability for certain BQEs relative to certain pressures or mix of pressures,
Other gaps may require more efforts in terms of monitoring, data analysis and metric development
Huge effort to develop and implement WFD-compliant methods to assess ecological status.
important gaps and weaknesses remaining, especially concerning assessment methods for transitional and coastal waters; benthic flora in rivers and fish in rivers, lakes and transitional waters, as well as methods sensitive to hydromorphological pressures in all water categories.

26. 3 - Assessment of ecological status
Most of the biological assessment methods are able to detect nutrient and organic matter pressures from point and diffuse sources causing eutrophication and organic enrichment impacts.
Hydromorphological pressures are less well captured by the biological assessment methods developed and are thus less well assessed
In terms of national specific pollutants, EQS values have been set for some national specific pollutants in many Member States, but it is not always transparent the identification, methodology. Important differences across MS.

27. 4 - Assessment of chemical status
As a result of different degrees of implementation of the EQSD there is a lack of comparability of the information on chemical status of surface water bodies among Member States
Reported limited failures for some of the priority substances. A large part of water bodies (40%) have not been assessed for chemical status
Limitation of many monitoring programs in terms of number of substances and monitoring stations.
Improvement of monitoring networks will enable analysis of all priority substances under conditions of full compliance with the provisions of Directive 2009/90/EC (quality and comparability of chemical monitoring)

28. 5 - Designation of HMWB
Designation has been mostly based on expert judgment
Deficits on the assessment on better environmental options and frequently not a wide analysis of alternatives
Progress in ‘translating’ ecological potential into biological targets differs greatly across MS.
Only few developed approaches for quantifying biological targets for GEP

29. 6 - Environmental objectives and exemptions
Exemptions to the general objectives have to fulfill certain conditions.
4(4): Extension of the deadline,
4(5) allows for the achievement of less stringent objectives,
4(6) temporary status deterioration,
4(7) deterioration of status or failure to achieve certain objectives may be permitted for new modifications to the physical characteristics as a result of new sustainable human development activities.

30. Thank you for your attention !