WFD-related changes in water management of EU national-and NOLIMP-pilot projects - Experinces from North Sea Regional and Local implementation of the water Framework Directive (NOLIMP-WFD)

Abstract

WFD prescribe a strong public participation in decision making processes. One common experience among the NOLIMP project partners is the importance of involving stakeholders at an early stage. A well established contact network will ease the process of solving controversies and agreeing on measures to meet environmental targets. The development of demonstrations sites create interests from other areas and exchange of knowledge/experience on the national level is stimulated. WFD supply some general rules on monitoring. It has been experienced that monitoring needs to be relatively comprehensive to enable proper abatement planning and to be able to follow the environmental effects/improvements of implemented measures. The use of numerical models to better understand the dynamics and interactions between different factors as well as climate is beneficial for water management. Another aspect of monitoring is to enable transparency and objectivity regarding the quantification of pollution load from different sources/sectors. The use of cost efficiency analysis is recommended in WFD, but its use has different status and history among the partners. The ranking of measures according to cost and the possibility to discard measures that obviously have a low efficiency is experienced as very useful