Can Natura 2000 Sites Benefit from River Basin Management Planning Under a Changing Climate? Lessons from Germany - Wetlands and Water Framework Directive: Protection, Management and Climate Change - page 31

3.2 RBMP As a Key Instrument to Achieve the Objectives
of the WFD

The WFD provides two planning instruments for achieving the objectives of Art. 4:
the programme of measures (Art. 11 WFD) and the river basin management plan
(Art. 13 WFD). Together, these two planning instruments form the basis for a
coherent, all-embracing management concept for river basins. Article 3 WFD
establishes the river basin as the spatial unit for water management planning.
Member States have to identify river basins within their territory and assign them to
river basin districts (Art. 1 para. 3 WFD).
River basin management planning and especially the selection of appropriate
measures are key instruments to achieve the objectives of Article 4 WFD and have
to be coordinated with the objectives of nature conservation. In EC-DGEnv ( 2010 ),
a dialogue on the programme of measures of WFD at an early stage was identi ed

as a tool for the coordination of the objectives of the WFD on the one hand and the
objectives of the HD and BD on the other hand. Since the end of 2009, programmes
of measures (Art. 11 WFD) and river basin management plans (Art. 13 WFD) are
available in most Member States of the EU.

3.2.1 Content of the Programmes of Measures and River
Basin Management Plans

The programme of measures sets out the actions to be taken during the imple-
mentation period to achieve the objectives of Art. 4 WFD (Czychowski and
Reinhardt 2010 , Section 82 marginal no. 2). Each programme of measures contains
basic and, where necessary, supplementary measures (Art. 11 para. 2 WFD). Basic
measures have to be carried out regardless of the present status of water bodies
(Rechenberg et al. 2000 , p. 41). This is to avoid impairing the quality of ecologi-
cally intact water bodies. Supplementary measures are de

ned in Article 11 para. 4
sentence 1 of the WFD as measures that are planned and realized by Member States
to achieve the objectives of Article 4. Such measures have to be taken if the basic
measures are not suf

cient to achieve the good water status (Seidel and Rechenberg
2004 , p. 213, 219). The river basin management plan concretises the objectives of
Article 4 WFD for each water body and documents all steps of river basin man-
agement planning (cf. Art. 13 WFD). A summary of the PoM is included in the
RBMP, too (cf. Annex VII No. 7 WFD).
Public consultation plays an important role during the whole implementation
process of the WFD. Thus, Member States shall encourage the active involvement of
all interested parties in particular in the preparation, review and updating of the
RBMP (cf. Art. 14 para. 1 WFD). Regarding the production, review and updating of
the PoM, public participation is not explicitly mentioned in Art. 14 WFD. However,
programmes of measures are subject to Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)