Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Nature and Food Quality strives constantly for harmony between the sometimes
contrasting interests of nature and agriculture, and therefore for a balance between water
for food and ecosystems.
2. Water policy in the European Union — The EU Water Framework Directive
(WFD)
The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is a European instrument to promote
integrated water management at the level of river basins. The aim of the Directive is to
achieve and maintain good water quality in European waters. The starting point is water
management at river basin level, with objectives and measures being incorporated into
river basin management plans. The ultimate aim for the member states is to introduce
cost-effective measures to reach the objective of good water quality in Europe by 2015, in
terms of good ecological and chemical status (Ministry of Transport, Public Works and
Water Management, 2004b). The European Directive offers member states scope to
formulate actual (ecological and chemical) goals. Of course environment quality must not
be allowed to deteriorate, even in the event of economic or population growth. Thus the
WFD is an ambitious piece of legislation. It is an incitement to use pricing policy as an
instrument to achieve sustainable use of water. As a result the economy is now taken far
more explicitly into account in water management. (Ministry of Transport, Public Works
and Water Management, 2003.)
To comply with the requirements of the WFD, a combination of source-and-effect
oriented measures are necessary to reduce the deficits of present policies. The efforts of
the Netherlands also depend on the efforts of upstream countries. The EU member states
work together on management plans within the international river basins. The
Netherlands makes river basin management plans for the river basin districts of the Eems,
Meuse, Rhine and Scheldt. The integrated approach of the WFD with designated river
basin districts ties in with Dutch philosophy for integrated policy. The source of our water
quality problems often lies outside our borders. The river basin management plans
provide us with an opportunity to reach agreements with countries upstream of us about
achieving the objectives in a particular river basin district. However, measures taken in
other countries can only go so far towards solving Dutch problems. Action also has to be
taken within the Netherlands. The WFD adds new impetus to existing Dutch water
quality management. If it is not possible to achieve the objectives with cost-effective
measures, the deadline may be extended so that the objectives can still be met or
objectives may be revised downwards (derogation).
The components of an economic analysis within the WFD include a characterisation
of the river basin in terms of economics of water uses, trends in supply and demand and
current levels of recovery of costs of water services. A selection has to be made of what
set of measures will be least costly to ensure a good water status (cost-effectiveness
analysis). This way it can be determined whether the costs of achieving the goals are
considered to be disproportionate so that derogation and the setting of lower
environmental objectives may be appropriate. This highlights the importance of economic
analysis in the WFD. Finally the question is who pays for the costs — in other words,
what impact do the proposed programmes of measures have on current levels of cost-
recovery.
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