Allocation of Costs and Benefits in the Water Framework Directive: A Dutch Exploration - Water and Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets and Policies - page 34

determines what is feasible and affordable, so that can be focused on these elements, and
by doing so create more public support for the WFD analysis and the results. The SCBA
focuses particularly on establishing the values attached by society to the impact of
measures taken within the framework of the FWD.
Box 1. Agriculture and the WFD in the Netherlands
A scenario study, conducted under the authority of the ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, presents,
despite its limitations, a picture of the huge task facing agriculture to achieve improvement in the ecological status
of water in the Netherlands. It concluded that the ecological objectives of the WFD would not be met even if all
arable land were to be taken out of production. The environmental impact of source-specific measures will be
limited, because of the accumulation of phosphate in soils, which contributes to phosphate losses to surface
waters. Effect-specific measures provide better prospects, although the effects of such measures have not been
recorded for Dutch circumstances. Generally, the consequences of implementation of the WFD for nature,
recreation and fisheries will be positive. Implementation of effect-specific measures to achieve the environmental
objectives can simultaneously contribute positively to the recovery of morphology, nature restoration, landscape
and recreation as well as fisheries. Thus, an integrated approach to the design and the implementation of
measures is highly recommendable, the study concludes.
This information contributed to a national discussion that resulted in the political decision that the implementation
of the Water Framework Directive in the Netherlands should be implemented as well as possible, with emphasis
on technical and financial feasibility, in other words a pragmatic implementation. The task is ultimately to strike a
good balance between the chosen goals and associated costs, with consideration for those who will ultimately
have to bear the costs.
Could this ´OEI´ guide and the supplement for nature and the environment be used to
carry out an SCBA for the WFD (see Box 2)? In a general sense such a supplementary
guide can provide greater transparency about nature and environment policy, as there are
clear benefits to set against the costs, so that ecology can be taken into account as well as
possible in wealth assessment. With this information, managers and politicians have to
decide how the SCBA balance is weighed against issues that are not taken into account in
an SCBA, like the intrinsic value of nature (see later) or the issue of cost allocation.
Box 2. The Social Cost Benefit Analysis in the Netherlands
An SCBA is an instrument that can be used to assess all current and future social advantages and
disadvantages, or the effects on wealth of a physical planning intervention, by expressing it in financial terms.
Because it looks at the pros and cons for all those concerned, the SCBA spans more than a single sector. If the
benefits outweigh the costs a project is socially justified (Witteveen + Bos, 2004). Unlike an analysis of the
business economics, an SCBA takes no account of the tax burden or how the costs are to be defrayed. However,
it does show how the costs and benefits are distributed among different social groupings.
The Social Cost-Benefit Analysis is increasingly important in the Netherlands in discussions concerning the use of
evaluation instruments to support decision-making processes (Bos, 2003). A guide (called OEI: Overzicht
Effecten Infrastructuur) is available for carrying out SCBAs in relation to infrastructure in the Netherlands
(Eijgenraam et al., 2000). An evaluation of this guide showed that drawing up statements of effects based on
cost-benefit analyses contributed to a greater transparency and professionalisation of policy information on
infrastructure. This guide does not include the quantitative effects on nature and environment, since it maintained
that these could not be expressed in monetary terms. Witteveen and Bos (2004) subsequently wrote, under the
authority of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, a supplement to the guide to take account of the
impact on nature and the environment.
The report by Witteveen and Bos (2004) acknowledges that the economic value of
nature is not self-explanatory. Most people interpret 'nature value' as an ecological
concept rather than an economic one. Yet a nature reserve can have an economic value