BETTER RIVER BASINS – A NEW WWF’S WEBSITE
(Posted 10 July 2006)
Better River Basins website has been developed by WWF with support from the HSBC Bank as part of its Investing in Nature programme. It is an evolving resource containing information on policy, technical guidance, river basin maps and plans, demonstration projects, legislation and research. It includes material from the UK, Europe and elsewhere and is aimed at professionals working in the river basin and water management sectors, as well as any stakeholder involved in the river basin planning process.
The website can be found at:
(http://www.wwf.org.uk/betterriverbasins)
THE ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL AGREES ON FLOODS DIRECTIVE (POLITICAL AGREEMENT)
(Posted 10 July 2006)
The final Environment Council under the Austrian Presidency took place on 27 June in Luxembourg. The Council reached a political agreement on a new Directive to combat floods. Member States generally welcomed the Commission’s proposed Floods Directive from January (IP/06/50). The Directive seeks to help Member States prevent and limit floods, and their damaging effects on human health, the environment, infrastructure and property. It will require Member States to carry out preliminary assessments to identify the river basins and associated coastal areas at risk of flooding. Such zones then will be subject to flood risk maps and flood risk management plans to improve prevention, protection and preparedness.
Main outstanding points for the Council were the timetable and other links with the Water Framework Directive, including the conditions for the use of existing maps and plans. The text will be adopted without further discussion at a forthcoming Council meeting in the form of a common position and sent to the European Parliament with a view to the second reading.
A provisional version of a press release on the Council Meeting can be found on the Council’s website:
(http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_applications/applications/newsRoom/
loadBook.asp?BID=89&LANG=1&cmsid=356)
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT VOTES ON CHANGES TO AN EU GROUNDWATER DIRECTIVE
(Posted 10 July 2006)
On 13 June 2006 the European Parliament voted on changes to an EU Groundwater Directive. MEPs were not happy with the Council’s common position, which they said did not pay sufficient attention to prevention. A number of first-reading amendments were reintroduced. The text adopted by the Parliament does not impose single standards for all countries, except for nitrates and pesticides, but it does seek to harmonise methods for measuring potential pollutants. Parliament wants to enlarge the scope of the directive by including a definition of deterioration that would mean “any slight, anthropogenically induced and persistent increase in concentrations of pollutants in relation to the status quo in the groundwater”. MEPs also want to include two other notions: background concentration and baseline concentration. Where the rules on nitrates and pesticides would require changes to farming practices, MEPs suggest providing special aid through the rural development plans that will be drawn up under the reformed common agricultural policy.
For full text of the News Release see the Parliament’s website:
(http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/064-8978
-163-06-24-911-20060613IPR08977-12-06-2006-2006-false/default_en.htm)
EEB, European Environmental Bureau - a federation of European environmental NGOs, has welcomed the outcome but was disappointed that the parliament allowed serious flaws to remain.
For EEB’s Press Release in full, see the EEB website:
(http://www.eeb.org/press/pr_groundwater_protection_130606.htm)
BETTER RIVER BASINS – A NEW WWF’S WEBSITE
(Posted 10 July 2006)
Better River Basins website has been developed by WWF (World Wildlife Fund) with support from the HSBC Bank as part of its Investing in Nature programme. It is an evolving resource containing information on policy, technical guidance, river basin maps and plans, demonstration projects, legislation and research. It includes material from the UK, Europe and elsewhere and is aimed at professionals working in the river basin and water management sectors, as well as any stakeholder involved in the river basin planning process.
The website can be found at:
(http://www.wwf.org.uk/betterriverbasins)
COMMON IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY FOR THE WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE: TOWARDS A GUIDANCE DOCUMENT ON EUTROPHICATION ASSESSMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN WATER POLICIES.
(Posted 25 May 2006)
Eutrophication is addressed in several EU policies such as Urban Waste Water Treatment (UWWT; 91/271/EEC), Nitrates (91/676/EEC) and Water Framework Directives (WFD; 2000/60/EC). A number of international conventions address eutrophication in marine waters including OSPAR (North East Atlantic) and HELCOM (Baltic Sea). In their meeting in June 2004 in Dublin, the Water Directors agreed to start an activity on eutrophication assessment under the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) process. The objective of the activity was to develop a guidance document focussed in particular on harmonisation of assessment methods and criteria across European water policy. The interim version of the guidance document has been presented to the Water Directors in their meeting in London in November 2005. It was generally recognised that the document provides already useful guidance both on technical and on policy relevant concepts.
A Workshop held in Brussels in September 2005 recognised that some on-going activities would have a strong impact on the way eutrophication is assessed, in particular the intercalibration exercise and some of the projects lead by the Marine Conventions. Moreover, the current version of the document is very valuable and should be circulated widely to spread its findings and to benefit from discussions and inputs from inside and outside the WFD CIS process. For these reasons, the Water Directors have decided to update and complement the entire document when the outcome of the on-going processes and projects is available and the wider discussions indicated the applicability of the proposed approaches in practice.
The interim guidance document and the policy summary can both be found on the public part of WFD CIRCA:
(http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/env/wfd/library
?l=/framework_directive/thematic_documents/13_eutrophication&vm=detailed&sb=Title)
The Steering Group welcomes any comments on the contents of these documents.
They should be sent by email to: Jorge.Rodriguez-Romero@cec.eu.int.