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 35

the Federal States in addition to those that can be identi ed from these sources.

For instance, the list of Annex I (HD) water-dependent habitat types found in Hesse
includes woodrush and woodruff beech woods as well as bedstraw-oak-hornbeam
woods as habitat types that are in some cases groundwater-dependent; however,
these habitat types are not included in the list of water-dependent habitat types for
Baden-Wuerttemberg or Bavaria (Hofmann and Schmidt 2012 , p. 216).
Differences in the nomination of protected areas can lead to differences in terms
of conservation objectives for protected areas. It is possible that the heterogeneity of
nomination may cause delays in the

first cycle of management planning due to
supplementary assessments and appeals based on species conservation legislation
(Fuchs et al. 2010 , p. 38 et seq.). According to Fuchs et al. ( 2010 ), there are also
signi cant differences in nomination procedures between the various European

countries.

Economic analysis of environmental costs for species and habitat types covered
by the HD

￿

The WFD intends that economic framework conditions are considered in
management plans (the so-called economic analysis). The economic analysis is to
be carried out as part of the inventory and should consider and present the four
areas: economic signi

cance of water uses, baseline scenario (forecast) of water
uses up to 2015, recovery of costs of water services, and cost effectiveness of
measures (cf. Annex III WFD).
From a nature conservation perspective this information can be of interest in a
number of areas. Information about the economic signi cance of water uses and their

future development (baseline scenario) may provide a basis for assessing current and
future impacts on protected assets (Wendler et al. 2012 , p. 50). On the one hand, the
needs of nature conservation are to be considered when determining environmental
and resource costs, and should also be included in the criteria used to assess the cost
ef ciency of measures. On the other hand, current forecasts about the future devel-

opment of nature conservation issues (e.g., with regards to climate) form the basis of
the baseline scenario, which in turn provides information about the future develop-
ment of water supplies, are taking into account the in

uence of climate change. This
section thus provides indications about whether objectives for certain planning units
or water bodies may require modi

fl

cation in the future and also aids in the choice of
measures that will be effective in the long-term (Stratmann et al. 2012b , p. 107).
However, there is currently a general lack of pragmatic, easy to handle, meth-
odological approaches for including in the economic analysis environmental costs
for species and habitat types covered by the HD. Furthermore, the terms

' water

services are very narrowly interpreted in Germany, so that

numerous impacts on species and habitats are not considered from an economic
perspective (e.g. by hydroelectric power,

' and ' water uses '

flood defences). For these reasons, the
environmental impacts and costs regarding Natura 2000 are not included in the
economic analysis suf

fl

ciently. As long as these environmental costs are not in-
ternalised, protected areas will not be adequately assessed when decisions about
uses are made (Stratmann et al. 2012a , p. 308 et seq.).