THE WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE (WFD)
In 2003 the Scottish Government transposed the WFD 2000/60/EC into Scots Law. The WFD applies to all water in the natural environment - rivers, lochs, estuaries, coastal and underground water.
The objectives of the WFD are to:
- Prevent deterioration in the status of surface water bodies
- Protect, enhance, and restore all bodies of surface water with the aim of achieving good surface water status by 2015
- Prevent deterioration of the status of groundwater bodies
- Protect, enhance, and restore all bodies of groundwater with the aim of achieving good groundwater status by 2015
- Prevent or limit the input of pollutants to groundwater and reverse any significant and sustained upward trend pollutant concentration in groundwater
- Comply on European measures against priority/priority hazardous substances
- Comply with any relevant standards and objectives for protected areas
The WFD requires Member States to establish systems for managing their water environments, underpinned by extensive environmental monitoring and scientific investigation, by indentifying natural River Basin Districts (RBDs) and developing River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs). Member states must also recover the costs of water services, to encourage sustainable water use.
The WFD repeals and replaces a number of older EC water Directives and incorporates the Bathing Water, Nitrates and Urban Waste Water Treatment Directives through its protected areas provisions. Natura Directives on the protection of Habitats and Birds are also linked to the WFD by the protected area provisions.
The two key components of the WFD are:
- The introduction of River Basin Management Planning to manage our water environment, covering all rivers, loch, estuaries, coastal waters and underground waters. A River Basin Management Plan for each River Basin District will be drawn up, setting out the environmental pressures and what can be done to address them.
- Control of all impacts - physical, polluting and otherwise - on the water environment with the aim of achieving "good" ecological status for water bodies by 2015. Status is determined on the basis of ecology as the WFD requires water quality to be determined not just by the chemical composition of waters, but by the fish, plant and other life that inhabits it.