Post a comment on the text below

Recital 19 of the WFD reads as follows: ‘This Directive aims at maintaining and improving the aquatic environment in the Community. This purpose is primarily concerned with the quality of the waters concerned. Control of quantity is an ancillary element in securing good water quality and therefore measures on quantity, serving the objective of ensuring good quality, should also be established’.

Although the WFD is primarily focused on water quality, the management of water quantity plays a very important role through the objective of good quantitative status for groundwater and the hydromorphological component of good ecological status for surface waters. Ultimately, it is only possible to achieve the WFD Environmental Objectives of good status if sufficient quantity of water is available.

The need to integrate the management of water quality and quantity has been highlighted in several reports at EU level. Different CIS groups and networks have also been established for several years. The current CIS Work Programme includes a CIS Working Group on E-flows and an activity on Water Accounts.

Reporting of the quantitative use of water is highly relevant for the WFD although it is clear that the situation as regards quantitative pressures in the EU is very diverse. Therefore, any reporting linked to this issue has to take into account this diverse situation in order to avoid unnecessary burden for those Member States where water abstraction is not an issue now nor is likely to be one in the future.

Article 5 of the WFD requires Member States to identify the key pressures present in the RBD that are likely to cause water bodies to be of less than good status. It also requires Member States to assess the impacts on water bodies to support the determination of status. This analysis should include water quantity related considerations where relevant.

In scarcity-prone RBDs, water balances are often calculated at RBD level, e.g. as part of water resources management or development of RBMPs and drought management plans. Significant abstractions and volumes abstracted on an annual and/or seasonal temporal scale, by source and category of abstraction (see List of pressure types in Annex 1a) have frequently been reported in RBMPs in the first cycle at RBD or Sub-unit level.

In 2012, Water Directors agreed a formula for calculating the Water Exploitation Index Plus (WEI+) of a particular area, as ‘the total consumption of water divided by the renewable freshwater resources'. The WEI+ was developed by the CIS Expert Group on Water Scarcity and Droughts to provide an indication of the pressure on the water resources of a certain territory as a consequence of water withdrawals.

WEI+ = (Abstractions – Returns) / Renewable Water Resources

This information is highly relevant to reinforce the link between water quantity and water quality, and the interaction between surface and groundwater bodies.

In terms of the pressure analysis, the information generally focuses on water use which needs to be further specified into water abstraction and consumptive water use (‘Abstraction minus Returns’). However, the pressures due to consumptive use need to be put into the context of water availability since only an imbalance between consumptively used water and freshwater availability gives an indication of the real pressure on the water ecosystem.

The selection of appropriate spatial and temporal scales is important to specify the regional and seasonal differences in the assessments. For the purpose of reporting the following scales are considered:

Spatial Scale

National.

RBD or the portion of an international RBD falling within a Member State’s territory.

Temporal Scale

In some basins, water scarcity is reflected only when calculating the monthly WEI+ indicator but not necessarily the annual WEI+ indicator. It is recognised that the monthly WEI+ best represents seasonal shortages that may not be revealed in the annual scale, while the annual WEI+ may be sufficient where there is an absence of problems associated with water scarcity. However, the application of the WEI+ on a monthly basis and associated reporting requires considerable effort in data acquisition and, therefore, should only be required in those RBDs where water abstraction is a significant pressure.

In order to adapt the reporting effort to the situation in the respective RBDs, the following two-step approach is devised for reporting purposes:

• Required for all RBDs: an indication of whether, on the basis of the pressures and impacts analysis, the annual WEI+ and/or any other available information, the Member State considers that water abstraction (understood as net consumption) is a significant pressure at the level of the (national part of the) RBD (or significant portions of it). If water abstraction is not a significant pressure in the RBD, no further reporting is required. An estimate of the RBD or national annual WEI+ may be provided if available (optional).
• Required only for those RBDs where water abstraction is considered a significant pressure: report the annual WEI+ and the WEI+ for the worst month in which water scarcity situations could be expected in the (national part of the) RBD as well as supplementary information about the consumptive water use by source and sector, and supporting parameters.

Reporting of the WEI+ for the worst month is not required in those cases where water scarcity does not present a seasonal pattern.

An alternative reporting option is provided for those Member States where the WEI+ is not yet available and uses other indicators.

Regarding the reporting of consumptive use, it is recognised that Member States have different approaches to obtain this value from their statistics. Focus needs to be on the clarification of the share of consumptive use as this is the most relevant aspect relating to water scarcity and droughts. In addition, it should be ensured that volumes that are abstracted but returned (e.g. for cooling water and hydropower) are not included into the reported value. Estimates for the consumptive use of water can be made on the basis of percentage factors of abstraction per type of use.

If the information requested has already been reported to the EEA’s SoE reporting through the EIONET process, it does not need to be reported again under the WFD.