What is the EU’s Water Framework Directive?

Our rivers, lakes, reservoirs and estuaries are important natural resources which must be protected. Not only do they provide habitats for countless species of fish, insects and other water-based animals, they can provide us with potable drinking water, irrigate our crops and act as an invaluable resource in industry.

As such, it’s essential that basic standards of cleanliness and healthiness are met to ensure we maintain control of the state of these water sources. In October of 2000, the Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for the Community action in the field of water policy was introduced. This directive, more easily identifiable as the EU Water Framework Directive, or WFD, united the piecemeal legislation which had existed previously into one blanket directive covering all waterways in European member states.

The Aims of the WFD

The directive was introduced with the goal of establishing a specific set of guidelines which could be applied across Europe, safeguarding the quality and cleanliness of waters everywhere. Specifically, the directive is applicable to:

• Rivers, lakes and other inland surface water bodies.
• Estuaries and other transitory water bodies.
• Coastal waters belonging to each country.
• Groundwater.

This new directive was somewhat innovative in its introduction of “River Basin Districts”. Instead of dividing up rivers according to national, political or administrative boundaries, the directive now denotes and separates the areas of water by their spatial catchment areas.

Of course, water has little respect for the laws of man and so these boundaries often conflict with those of national borders. As a result, governmental bodies of differing EU member states are frequently required to work in tandem with one another to ensure that the requirements of the directive are met and the quality of the water is maintained.

The Requirements of the WFD

In order to achieve their aims, member states are required to implement River Basin Management Plans. These are intended to provide a concise and transparent list of objectives which the states need to meet in order to maintain quality levels and to create plans on how to go about achieving these objectives. The plans must be updated and re-addressed at a maximum of six year intervals.

Water quality is assessed for four different criteria. These are:

1. The quality and quantity of biological matter. This covers the amount and diversity of fish, water-dwelling invertebrates and the plant life found in the waters, as well as its quality of life.
2. Structural integrity of the water body. This includes river bed substrate, river continuity and structure of the river bank itself.
3. Physical-chemical quality. This means the ratio of oxygen to other components of the water, as well as its nutritional composition and average, high and low temperatures.
4. Chemical quality. This refers to the level of specified pollutants in a given body of water. Even if a single pollutant exceeds the recommended amount, the water will fail to qualify as of good quality. For more information on how such chemical levels are monitored, see the article The Many Faces of a New Versatile Passive Sampler.

At the time of its implementation (December 2000), the directive set out objectives which each members state and river basin district must meet by this year (2015). The progress of each body is set to be reviewed at a later date in the coming six months.