Workshop 2a (synthesis): linking drainage basin management to local action plans and policy.

The complexity of linking drainage basin management to local action plans and policy has been largely underestimated by the water profession. Water management issues may be similar between areas but solutions are not universal--they must be specific to each local context. A particular problem is that a drainage basin is likely to cover a number of administrative and/or political boundaries.     

Workshop 2b (synthesis): linking drainage basin management to local action plans and national security--theory and practice in eastern European countries.

Efforts to link and balance national water policies, local water action and national security issues are discussed. There needs to be greater clarity of water roles, rights and responsibilities among national stakeholders as well as between states. In some cases, insufficient attention has been paid to local concerns and, in balancing national and local actions, it is necessary to address decentralization in the context of a transboundary state. There is a strong need for enhanced stakeholder participation in the formulation and implementation of national and local water management plans.     

Integrating the implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive and Floods Directive in Ireland

Water Framework Directive (WFD) statutory authorities and stakeholders in Ireland are now challenged with the issue of how the proposed programmes of measures in the newly required River Basin Management Plans - designed to protect and restore good ecology by reverting as closely as possible back to natural conditions - are to be implemented in a way that concurrently complies with other existing and emerging intersecting European Union legislation, such as the Floods Directive (FD). The WFD is driven largely by ecological considerations, whereas the FD and other legislation are more geared towards protecting physical property and mitigating public safety risks. Thus many of the same waterbodies, especially heavily modified waterbodies, arguably have somewhat competing policy objectives put upon them. This paper explores the means by which Ireland might best achieve the highest degrees of cost effectiveness, economic efficiency and institutional durability in pursuing the common and overarching objective of the WFD and FD - to ensure Irish waterways are put to their highest valued uses.     

Using catchment models to establish measure plans according to the Water Framework Directive.

A participatory modelling process (DEMO) has been developed and applied in a 350 km2 catchment in southern Sweden. The overall goal is to improve the dialogues between experts and local stakeholders by using numerical models as a platform for discussions. The study is focused on reducing nutrient load and on the development of a locally established measure plan, which is requested by the European Water Framework Directive. The HBV-NP model was chosen as it can calculate effects and costs for different allocations of several combined measures in a catchment. This paper shows the impact of including local data in the modelling process vs. using more general data. It was found that modelled diffuse nutrient pollution was highly modified when including local know-how, soft information and more detailed field investigations. Leaching from arable land was found to be 35% higher using more detailed information on for instance, agricultural practices, crop and soil distribution. Moreover, the stakeholders' acceptance of model results and reliance on experts was increased by applying the participatory process and involving stakeholders in the modelling procedure.     

Lake management in Italy: the implications of the Water Framework Directive

This paper constitutes the first consideration of the implications of the lake management in Italy arising from the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), in comparison to the provisions of existing national legislation. As a matter of fact, the Italian decrees anticipated the principles of the WFD and have substantially modified the legislation in the field of water in Italy. Important changes were introduced, both in the monitoring systems and in the classification methods for surface waters. The environmental quality status will be determined not only by monitoring the aqueous matrix, but also the sediment and the biota. The new WFD is the major piece of European Union (EU) legislation with environment at its core; it will guide the efforts for attaining a sustainable aquatic environment in the years to come. In the WFD one can see elements from all the different forces that guided the reform of EU water policy: environmental protection, deregulation and subsidiarity. Moreover, elements of the economic instruments approach (introduction of the cost recovery principle), quantitative concerns (setting of minimum flow objectives for rivers and abstraction limits for ground waters) and the quest for integration (river basin management with representation of all stakeholders) are all reflected in the WFD. The paper summarizes the present condition of the most important lakes in the Italian lake district and also highlights the case of Lake Varese, representing a unique case of lake management in Italy. Preliminary results show that there are very few examples dealing with the elements thought appropriate to lake water assessment as required by the WFD. The application of the objectives of the type specified is a largely unknown issue.     

Tensions in water management: Dutch tradition and European policy.

Present-day worldwide water problems require new management tools and sustainable system innovations. At Delft University of Technology research is being carried out into water resources and management development aimed at forming such tools and innovations, focused on Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM). One of the case-studies deals with Dutch water management and technology in the context of European IRBM in the form of the 2000 Water Frame Directive. The Netherlands experience many water problems and European IRBM could bring help by offering a framework for both international cooperation and technological innovations. To work as an adequate management tool European IRBM should be tailored to the Dutch water tradition, which recently culminated in Integrated Water Management. Both approaches are in some respects contradicting. Europe pursues, for example, centralized control; while the Dutch have their strongly water boards based decentralized administration. The tensions between both approaches require mutual adaptation, for which the concept of subsidiarity might offer points of departure. This paper describes the first results of the case-research into Dutch water management and technology in the context of Europe as well as the backgrounds and the set-up of the research as a whole.     

Hydro-economic Modeling in River Basin Management: Implications and Applications for the European Water Framework Directive

Economic ideas and processes are becoming increasingly integrated with more traditional engineering and hydrologic models of water management problems. Combining economic management concepts and performance indicators with an engineering-level of understanding of a hydrologic system can provide results and insights more directly relevant for water management decisions and policies. When such models are developed and used with involvement of stakeholders, they can become a basis for shared understanding of water problems as a foundation for negotiated management and policy solutions. When implemented with optimization software, integrated hydro-economic models also can suggest promising innovative solutions for policy-makers to consider. Their applications to river basin management problems are reviewed. Economic and integrated economic-engineering-hydrologic modeling is then discussed in the context of the evolving European Water Framework Directive. Relevant items are cost recovery and water pricing, cost-effectiveness of water management measures, and public participation in decision processes.     

Summary and conclusions from the SIWI Seminar for Young Water Professionals Drainage basin security--implications of virtual water trade and agricultural subsidies at regional, national and local levels.

This is a summary of the Young Water Professionals Seminar involving more than 50 young people from all over the world working with water. The presentations and following discussion were very lively and were about how subsidies and trade barriers imposed by the developed countries are influencing the income-generating capacity of millions of people in the developing world. Even though this is a very complex issue not easily resolved during the seminar it was also clear that there are some fundamental problems that need to be addressed. The importance of looking for solutions at different levels (i.e. local, regional, national) was highlighted as well as the policy of double standards, preaching free trade but only for the benefit of overdeveloped countries themselves. Further it was discussed how to achieve basin security through food security, and managing water for food security. The conclusion was that win-win solutions would be made if agricultural subsidies were to be completely removed.     

Evaluation of river basin restoration options by the application of the Water Framework Directive Explorer in the Zwalm River basin (Flanders,Belgium)

Water managers and researchers strive towards the same objective: the improvement of the quality status of water bodies. However, there is still a gap between the results of academic studies on water systems and the information currently used in water management. The Water Framework Directive (WFD)‐Explorer, a modular toolbox which supports integrated water management in a river basin, attempts to bridge this gap. The toolbox analyses the impact of different restoration measures on river ecology based on expert rules embedded in this simulation environment. The strengths and weaknesses of the toolbox have been tested on the Zwalm River basin in Flanders, Belgium. The ecological status of streams in the basin spans the whole range of nearly pristine headwaters to severely impacted river stretches further downstream. Considering the key bottlenecks in the Zwalm basin and the user‐driven ecological status objectives, several water quality and physical habitat restoration options have been proposed to meet the European Water Framework Directive goals. The positive impact of restoration measures on the ecological quality ratio (EQR) for macroinvertebrates appeared to be the highest for measures affecting the nutrient inflows and thus chemical water body characteristics. However, the spatial scale on which the WFD‐Explorer modelled the impact of physical habitat restoration may have been too coarse to generate reliable results concerning such restoration measures. Hence, the combination of the WFD‐Explorer results with those of more detailed studies on physical habitat restoration impacts might be a promising approach to reliably support decision‐making implementation of the WFD. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Multimetric Macroinvertebrate Index for the Implementation of the European Water Framework Directive in French Guiana,East Amazonia

Neotropical, overseas regions of Europe are subjected to the same water policy objectives as the continental ones but were overlooked during recent developments of bioindicators that fulfil the Water Framework Directive guidelines. We designed a macroinvertebrate‐based multimetric index [Indice Biotique Macroinvertébrés de Guyane (IBMG)] to assess ecological health in remote headwater‐small streams of French Guiana, Europe's only overseas region of continental South America. Invertebrates were sampled at 95 sites including reference and impacted river reaches, following a standardized protocol. Among the 102 biological metrics calculated from site‐specific data, we selected metrics exhibiting the best trade‐off between high discrimination efficiency, low specificity, low redundancy and high stability under reference conditions. The IBMG is composed of two taxonomic richness‐based metrics, two abundance‐based metrics, one trait‐related metric and a diversity index (Shannon's entropy). Each metric was weighted by its discrimination efficiency. Using a test data set, we found that the IBMG was sensitive to the range of disturbances in French Guiana. Finally, comparing the IBMG with other indices developed in other neotropical countries reveals that, for several reasons, multimetric indices developed in the neotropics may perform well in the context of the data sets used to generate them but would certainly fail to be robust when used elsewhere. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Environmental and Resource Costs Under Water Scarcity Conditions: An Estimation in the Context of the European Water Framework Directive

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires the good ecological status of surface water bodies, which implies the improvement of both their physicochemical condition, as well as their flow and continuity. The WFD prescribes the assessment of environmental and resource costs and benefits associated with implementing these improvements. The recent literature focuses almost exclusively on the assessment of the economic values related to quality aspects. However, in much of southern Europe, fulfilling the WFD goals will greatly depend on maintaining sufficient water flow, as well. This study aims to fill this gap by assessing the non-market value of allocating enough water to the environment to ensure environmental services are sustained when water is scarce. The non-market value of guaranteeing water supply for secondary household uses is also estimated. Using the Guadalquivir River Basin in Spain as a case study, a choice experiment is applied with scenarios characterized by varying water flow levels and accompanying environmental impacts, and a different frequency of household water restrictions. The results show that the population derives significant benefits not only from the direct use of water, but that also holds non-use values related to the ecological status, although the latter has a considerably lower impact on consumer surplus. Additionally, we conclude that the costs of implementing the water saving measures currently included in the Program of Measures seem to be proportionate to its benefits in this case.     

Drainage basin security of hazardous chemical fluxe in the Yodo River basin.

The Yodo River basin consists of three major tributary basins (and other small river basins) namely Uji, Katsura and Kizu, which overlap respectively Shiga, Kvoto and Nara prefectures' administrative areas. Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan, drains water through the Uji river. The water quality of the lake, in terms of BOD, continuously improved over the last decade. However, the quality in terms of COD did not show any improvement in spite of a large amount of infrastructure finance being introduced. Eutrophication of the lake still continues, showing no improvement in the nitrogen concentration level. Non-point as well as point source control is not strong enough. There is a gap between BOD and COD evaluations of the lake water quality. Hazardous chemical fluxes are estimated based upon PRTR reports of Japan (2001). PCBs are still discharged into the lake, although the report of Shiga Prefecture showed zero discharge. Dace fish monitoring clearly showed that PCB contamination of the fish had not changed since the 1980s in spite of a ban on use and production of PCBs in the 1970s. There is still leakage of PCBs into the lake. The major exposure of dioxins to Japanese is fish rather than meat and eggs. The risk of water contamination must take into consideration not only drinking water safety but also ecological magnification of food chains in water. The ecological health aspect of hazardous chemicals is also important, such as organotins with imposex of sea snails. Finally, public participation in hazardous chemical management is very important using the method of risk communication based upon the annual report of PRTR in Japan.     

完善流域水法规体系建设保障流域水资源统一管理

依法治国,建立社会主义法治国家,已被<宪法>确定为治理国家的基本方略.作为国民经济、社会发展的基础产业和基础设施的水利,必须通过依法治水才能实现其改革和发展的目标.水利法制建设作为依法治水的核心,已成为发展我国水利事业的重要基础性工作.     

适应性管理下流域初始水权配置方法研究进展

流域初始水权配置是建立健全初始水权分配制度的重要前提。但是受不确定性因素及因素间的交互耦合的影响,现有流域初始水权的配置方案与产业结构的高级化适配性低,而适应性管理是一个不确定性被辨识和降低的过程。基于此,从适应性管理视角出发,对现有的流域初始水权配置方法进行全面的梳理和动态评述;同时结合我国水资源管理方面的新要求,指出现有配置方法存在的问题,提出了近阶段的研究重点,即面向双控行动下的水资源硬约束,按照"适配性问题诊断——流域初始水权适配方案设计——方案适应性判别及进化调整"的适应性管理思路,开展流域初始水权与产业结构高级化适配研究,以利于初始水权分配制度的建立健全。     

Integrated river basin planning and management: a case study of the Zayandehrud River basin,Iran

This study applies the concept of integrated water resources management (IWRM) to a river basin in Iran, and in so doing, proposes a framework for implementing IWRM principles. Issues such as stakeholder participation, sustainability in several subdomains, scenario analysis, dispute resolution, climate change and well-designed models have been considered. Through a river basin simulation model (RIBASIM) and sustainability criteria, stakeholders made decisions for improving the level of sustainability in the basin. The result of decision making for the future was tested under climate change impacts, and the outputs showed serious challenges, so a strategy is proposed for overcoming these impact effects.     

Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive: Experiences of Participatory Planning in the Ribble Basin,North West England

Abstract

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is potentially the most significant piece of water management legislation to be developed by the European Union (EU) in the last forty years. Whilst water legislation is already regarded by many people as the ‘gold plating’ of EU environmental policy, many of the previous regulations and policies have focussed on specific point and non-point source water quality problems and have stipulated stringent standards to be achieved within specified time limits. In sharp contrast, the WFD aims to establish a planning and management framework for sustainable use of water and the ecological restoration of entire river systems, many of which do not fit neatly within the political or administrative boundaries of the Member States. Public participation in planning and management decisions is a key aspect of the WFD. This paper describes the specific requirements of the WFD for public participation and examines their implementation in the Ribble basin in North West England. The Ribble is part of a EU river basin network designed to test the WFD implementation guidelines issued by the European Commission. Particular challenges associated with engaging stakeholders in WFD implementation are highlighted and recommendations for future practice are offered.     

The CatchMod toolbox: easy and guided access to ICT tools for Water Framework Directive implementation.

Web-based toolboxes are handy tools to inform experienced users of existing software in their disciplines. However, for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, a much more diverse public (water managers, consultancy firms, scientists, etc.) will ask for a very wide diversity of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools. It is obvious that the users of a web-based ICT-toolbox providing all this will not be experts in all of the disciplines and that a toolbox for ICT tools for Water Framework Directive implementation should thus go beyond just making interesting web-links. To deal with this issue, expert knowledge is brought to the users through the incorporation of visitor-geared guidance (materials) in the Harmoni-CA toolbox. Small workshops of expert teams were organized to deliver documents explaining why the tools are important, when they are required and what activity they support/perform, as well as a categorization of the multitude of available tools. An integration of this information in the web-based toolbox helps the users to browse through a toolbox containing tools, reports, guidance documents and interesting links. The Harmoni-CA toolbox thus provides not only a virtual toolbox, but incorporates a virtual expert as well.     

Framework for surface water quality management on a river basin scale: Case study of Lake Iseo, Northern Italy

River (DESERT) and lake (EVOLA) water quality models are used to simulate the influences of alternative water quality management scenarios on the quality of receiving surface waters in the Lake Iseo basin, Northern Italy. The scenarios are representative of the European Union Directive on Urban Waste Water Treatment (91/271/EEC) and of the regional authority’s objective to reduce the total phosphorus loads from point sources entering Lake Iseo and to restore the lake as close as it is practically possible to its former natural qualitative state. Application of DESERT shows that the regional ‘Water Clean Up Plan’ can achieve similar reductions in total phosphorus concentrations in the basin’s main river system, Oglio River, to the 91/271/EEC directive, but at notably lower economic costs. Application of EVOLA to Lake Iseo shows that it is not practical to achieve the regional authority’s objective of a specific total phosphorus concentration in the lake by 2016. Instead, the results show that a more realistic, but higher, total phosphorus concentration can be achieved by 2016. The results of both modelling exercises indicate the usefulness of DESERT and EVOLA for comparing and assessing water quality management scenarios and for revising the regional authority’s final objectives with regards to total phosphorus concentration in Lake Iseo, as well as the regional ‘Water Clean Up Plan’ for restoring and safeguarding the quality of the basin’s surface waters.