Acronyms Acronym Meaning CIS Common implementation strategy: informal cooperation under the Water Framework Directive and its daughter directives to support their implementation. The strategy gathers representatives from Member States, EEA/EFTA countries and all relevant stakeholders. The strategy also serves as a platform for the exchange of experience and develops guidance documents and policy papers. EEA European Environment Agency EQSD Environmental Quality Standards Directive EQS Environmental quality standard(s): under the Environmental Quality Standards Directive, limits on the concentration of certain substances or groups of substances identified as priority pollutants because of the significant risk they pose to or via the aquatic environment. EU European Union FD Floods Directive FHRM Flood hazard and risk maps: step 2 in the cycle of flood risk management introduced by the Floods Directive; these maps show how far floods might extend, the depth or level of water and the impacts there might be on human health, the economy, environment and cultural heritage. FRM Flood risk management FRMP Flood risk management plan: step 3 in the cycle of flood risk management introduced by the Floods Directive; these plans are required from Member States every 6 years and must set out appropriate objectives for the management of flood risk within the areas covered by the plan. GDP Gross domestic product GWD Groundwater Directive MSFD Marine Strategy Framework Directive PFRA Preliminary flood risk assessment: step 1 in the cycle of flood risk management introduced by the Floods Directive; these assessments lead to the identification of areas that are at significant risk of flooding. PoM Programme of measures: the tool under the Water Framework Directive designed to enable the Member States to respond appropriately to the relevant pressures identified at river basin district level during the pressures and impacts analysis, with the objective of enabling the river basin/water body to reach good status. RBD River basin district: unit of water management under the Water Framework Directive; a river basin district is an area of land from which all surface run-off flows through a sequence of streams, rivers and possibly lakes into the sea at a single river mouth, estuary or delta. RBMP River basin management plan: a comprehensive document required from Member States under the Water Framework Directive every 6 years, which should describe the actions envisaged to implement the Directive. The RBMPs cover many aspects of water management and identify all actions and measures to be taken within the river basin district in order to deliver the objectives of the Water Framework Directive. RBSPs River basin-specific pollutants: under the Water Framework Directive, pollutants identified by Member States as being of regional or local importance (in particular those listed in Annex VIII to the Directive) for which Member States must set environmental quality standards, conduct monitoring and establish control measures. SDGs Sustainable Development Goals UoM Unit of management (under the Floods Directive); in the vast majority of Member States, UoMs correspond to river basin districts. UWWTD Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive WFD Water Framework Directive WISE Water Information System for Europe, hosted by the EEA WTP Willingness to pay



Table of contents 1. Introduction: purpose and scope of this fitness check 2. Background to the intervention 2.1. Description of the Directives and their objectives 2.2. Integrated water and flood management 2.3. Intervention logic 2.4. Baseline 3. Implementation and state of play 3.1. State of European waters 3.2. Assessment of the second river basin management plans and first flood risk management plans 4. Method 4.1. Process 4.2. Evidence gathering 4.3. Limitations — robustness of findings 5. Analysis

5.1. Effectiveness 5.1.1: ‘To what extent are the Directives performing as expected?’ 5.1.2: ‘How have the Directives changed water management practices and influenced governance and policy-making in Member States?’ 5.1.3: ‘Which main factors have contributed to or stood in the way of achieving the Directives’ objectives?’ 5.2. Efficiency 5.2.1: ‘What are the costs of the legislation and to what extent are the costs of the legislation justified, given the benefits achieved?’ 5.2.2: ‘What factors have influenced the efficiency of implementation? Have good practices be identified?’ 5.2.3: ‘To what extent are monitoring and reporting requirements fit for purpose?’ 5.2.4: ‘To what extent are there opportunities to simplify the legislation or reduce unnecessary regulatory cost without undermining the objectives of the Directives?’ 5.3. Coherence 5.3.1: ‘To what extent is the legislation coherent internally?’ 5.3.2: ‘To what extent is the legislation consistent with wider EU policy?’ 82 5.3.3: ‘To what extent is the legislation consistency with international obligations?’ 100 5.4. Relevance 102 5.4.1: ‘To what extent are the objectives still relevant and properly addressing the key problems and concerns related to water that ecosystems and the society presently face? 102 5.4.2: ‘How relevant are the Directives to EU citizens?’ 109 5.4.3: ‘How relevant are the Directives for EU external policy objectives (considering the development, cooperation and transboundary water dimensions)?’ 111 5.5. EU added value 112 5.5.1: ‘What is the additional value resulting from these Directives compared to what could have reasonably been expected from Member States acting at national, regional and/or international (including non-EU) level?’ 113 6. Conclusions 115

6.1. Key points regarding the evaluation criteria 115 6.2. Key issues per directive 119 Water Framework Directive 119 Environmental Quality Standards Directive 121 Groundwater Directive 122 Floods Directive 123 6.3. Lessons learned for future follow-up 123 7. Annexes 125 Annex 1 - Procedural information 125 1.1. Lead DGs and internal references 125 1.2. Organisation of the work and timing 125 1.3. Exceptions to the Better Regulation Guidelines 126 1.4. Consultation of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board 126 1.5. Evidence, sources and quality 130 Annex 2 - Consultation activities - synopsis report 131 Annex 3 - Methods used in preparing the fitness check 145 Annex 4 - References 150 Studies, articles, reports and policy documents 150 EU legislation 157 Common implementation strategy 159

Annex 5 - Coherence - additional information on the coherence of water policy with wider EU policy 160 Coherence with other components of EU environmental legislation affecting water

quality 160 Coherence with other EU policies addressing the protection of the environment 161 Coherence with other EU policies 171



Glossary Term Definition Chemical status Defined in the Water Framework Directive Article 2(24) and (25) for surface waters and groundwaters respectively. The chemical status of surface waters is determined by reference to environmental quality standards set at EU level for chemical pollutants, mainly the priority substances (Article 16 of the Directive). The chemical status of groundwaters is determined by reference to criteria including quality standards and conductivity (Article 17 of the Directive). Cost recovery principle The Water Framework Directive establishes the principle of cost recovery, whereby competent authorities should ensure that the costs of measures, including environmental and resource costs, are recovered, taking into account the polluter pays principle. Good ecological status Defined in Water Framework Directive Article 2(22) and Annex V, it comprises the quality of the biological community, the hydromorphological characteristics and the physico-chemical characteristics of water bodies. Good ecological potential Defined in Water Framework Directive Article 2(23) and Annex V, this is the equivalent of good ecological status for artificial and heavily modified water bodies. Heavily modified water body A water body resulting from physical alterations by human activity, which substantially change its hydromorphological character, for example, a harbour. Implementation gap The gap between the status quo, if not good, and being in compliance with the Directives’ objectives. Mixing zone Zone adjacent to a point of discharge of pollutants within which the concentration of those pollutants may exceed the relevant environmental quality standards if this does not affect the compliance of the rest of the water body with those standards. Non-deterioration principle Principle in the Water Framework Directive under which Member States must take measures to prevent the status of their water bodies from deteriorating; an exemption from this principle can only be granted if certain requirements are met, one of which is the demonstration of an overriding public interest. One-out-all-out principle Principle in the Water Framework Directive underlying the definition of the status of water bodies; it ensures that all parameters are adequately considered in the effort to reach good status. For example, the status cannot be good if the status of any of the relevant biological quality elements is less than good or if the environmental quality standards in the Environmental Quality Standards Directive are exceeded for any of the substances listed in Annex X to the Water Framework Directive. Priority substance Substance identified in accordance with Water Framework Directive Article 16(2) and listed in Annex X. Priority substances are chemical pollutants that pose a significant risk to (or via) the aquatic environment at EU level. There are currently 45 of these priority substances listed in Annex X to the Water Framework Directive. Member States have to monitor their concentrations in surface waters and meet the environmental quality standards set for them within a certain timeline, unless they meet conditions that allow them to apply exemptions. Priority hazardous substance Priority hazardous substances are a subset of priority substances, of which they are the most dangerous. They are toxic, persistent and liable to bio-accumulate, or give rise to an equivalent level of concern. Because of these properties, the Water Framework Directive requires their emissions to the aquatic environment to be phased out within 20 years of their designation as ‘priority hazardous’. Watch list List of substances for which EU-wide monitoring data are to be gathered for the purpose of supporting future reviews of the list of priority substances. These are substances for which the information available indicates that they may pose a significant risk, but for which monitoring data are insufficient. Water body For surface waters, a water body is a discrete and significant element of water such as a lake, reservoir, stream, river, canal or a part of one of these, or a transitional water or stretch of coastal water. For groundwater, a body of water is a distinct volume of groundwater within an aquifer or aquifers. According to Common implementation strategy Guidance No 2, ‘The ‘water body’ should be a coherent sub-unit in the river basin (district) to which the environmental objectives of the directive must apply. Hence, the main purpose of identifying ‘water bodies’ is to enable the status to be accurately described and compared to environmental objectives’.



1.Introduction: purpose and scope of this fitness check This fitness check is a comprehensive policy evaluation of four Directives on integrated water management: -the Water Framework Directive (WFD) — Directive 2000/60/EC; -the Environmental Quality Standards Directive (EQSD) — Directive 2008/105/EC; -the Groundwater Directive (GWD) — Directive 2006/118/EC; -the Floods Directive (FD) — Directive 2007/60/EC. It assesses whether the Directives are fit for purpose by examining their performance against the five criteria set out in the Commission’s Better Regulation agenda: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value. For each criterion, specific evaluation questions were prepared (see Annex 3). This includes: (i) examining implementation and integration successes and problems; (ii) the costs of implementation and non-implementation of the legislation; (iii) the administrative burden of implementation; and (iv) opportunities to reduce the burden without compromising the integrity of the Directives’ purpose. This retrospective exercise considers what has worked well and what has not, and compares actual performance against earlier expectations. The results will be used by the Commission to inform future decisions on EU water policy. This report has been prepared in accordance with Article 19(2) of the Water Framework Directive, which tasks the Commission with reviewing the WFD at the latest 19 years after the date of its entry into force (22 December 2000) and proposing any necessary amendments to it. It also covers the Environmental Quality Standards Directive and the Groundwater Directive, the WFD’s two ‘daughter’ directives, because they are directly relevant to the environmental objectives and standards included in the WFD. Both daughter directives have annexes that require regular updating, and this fitness check contributes to the evidence base for the next updates.

While there is no specific article in the Floods Directive requiring evaluation, its evaluation was included in this fitness check because there are strong links between the WFD and the FD. These links are particularly strong for water quality and hydrological and morphological aspects of water management, but also in light of the increasing environmental pressures caused by extreme weather events resulting from climate change. The links between the WFD and the FD are also explicit in the legal requirement for coordination between the management plans developed under both directives. This requirement has translated into strong links between the implementation of the WFD and FD at Member State and river basin district level. This fitness check is also closely linked to the evaluation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD), which was carried out in parallel. The measures under the UWWTD are among the basic measures required under the WFD; their implementation is therefore essential for the achievement of the WFD objectives. However, since the UWWTD is a directive that targets one specific pressure, it was evaluated on its own, with the results feeding into this fitness check. Other pieces of EU water law, such as the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC), the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC) and the Bathing Directive (2006/7/EC) are not part of the scope of this fitness check as their evaluations are due to be carried out in the near future. The Drinking Water Directive (98/83/EC) has been evaluated, and the proposal for its recast is currently under ordinary legislative procedure. Links with these directives, have been fully considered in this fitness check, particularly under the ‘coherence’ criterion. Finally, this fitness check also follows on from the Commission’s commitments in response to the Right2Water citizens’ initiative, which promotes access to water and sanitation. 2.Background to the intervention 2.1. Description of the Directives and their objectives History European water legislation began in 1975 with the setting of standards for European rivers and lakes used for drinking water abstraction and bathing water. In 1980, binding quality targets were set for drinking water, and legislation was subsequently introduced on the quality of fish waters, shellfish waters and groundwater. At that time, the main emission control instrument applied to water-related directives was the Dangerous Substances Directive. In 2000, EU water policy underwent a consolidation process, which led to the adoption of the WFD. Its aim was to promote a more holistic approach to water policy, streamlining existing freshwater legislation and adopting a river basin management approach. The WFD included a provision under which the Directive would be complemented to further refine the assessment of water status. The EQSD and GWD were subsequently adopted in 2008 and 2006 respectively. The Floods Directive was adopted in 2007. It introduced a comprehensive and integrated approach to floods management after a period in which Europe suffered over 100 major destructive floods (between 1998 and 2004), including the record‑breaking August 2002 flood on the Danube, the Elbe and their tributaries. The Water Framework Directive The Water Framework Directive is the most comprehensive and overarching instrument of EU water policy. It applies to fresh, coastal and transitional waters and ensures an integrated approach to water management respecting the integrity of whole ecosystems. It provides direction for and coherent links with several other EU directives relevant to water. The environmental objectives of the WFD are to: -prevent deterioration of the status of water bodies; and -protect, enhance and restore all water bodies, aiming to achieve good ecological status or good ecological potential and good chemical status for surface waters, as well as good quantitative and good chemical status for groundwater by 2015 (as laid down in its Article 4(1)). Preventing further deterioration is thus key in the path towards achieving good status. These environmental objectives fit into the more general purpose of the Directive (set out in Article 1) which is to establish a framework to protect inland surface waters, transitional waters, coastal waters and groundwaters. This includes preventing further deterioration, promoting sustainable water use, and improving and better protecting the aquatic environment. A number of exemptions to the environmental objectives of the WFD may be applied if specific conditions are met. ·Article 4(4) allows for an extension of the deadline for achieving good status beyond 2015; this extension is limited to 2027 (end of the third cycle), unless natural conditions prevent the WFD objectives from being reached within the time limits set. ·Article 4(5) allows for less stringent objectives.

·Article 4(6) allows for a temporary deterioration in the status of water bodies owing to natural causes or force majeure. ·Article 4(7) sets out conditions in which deterioration of status or failure to achieve some of the WFD objectives may be permitted. This includes failure to achieve the objectives due to new modifications to the physical characteristics of surface water bodies or alterations in the level of groundwater, and failure to prevent deterioration from high to good status due to new sustainable human development activities. The Environmental Quality Standards Directive The 2008 Environmental Quality Standards Directive (EQSD), a ‘daughter’ of the WFD, established environmental quality standards (EQS), as required by WFD Article 16(8), for the 33 priority substances listed since 2001 in Annex X to the WFD, and for eight other pollutants already regulated at EU level. The EQS are the concentrations that should not be exceeded, either on an annual average basis (AA-EQS) or at any time point (Maximum Allowable Concentration EQS). These standards are used to determine the chemical status of surface water. Based on a scientific review of more than 2,000 substances, the EQSD was revised in 2013, and thereby also Annex X to the WFD. Twelve substances were added to the priority substances list, including additional industrial chemicals, biocides, and plant protection products. The Water Framework Directive requires the Commission to submit proposals for controls to reduce emissions, discharges and losses of all priority substances and eight other pollutants and to cease or phase out emissions, discharges and losses of the subset of priority hazardous substances. By replacing five older Directives, the EQSD contributed to the Commission’s Better Regulation initiative. The EQSD also requires Member States to ensure that the concentrations of certain pollutants in sediment and biota do not significantly increase, and to establish inventories of pollutant emissions so that progress towards reducing and phasing out emissions can be assessed. The Directive further includes provisions for Member States to designate what are called ‘mixing zones’, and to take account of transboundary pollution. The 2013 revision of the EQSD established a new mechanism requiring Member States to monitor substances on a surface water watch list (first adopted in 2015 and revised in 2018) to gather information to support the review of the priority substances list. The substances included in this watch list are those for which the information available indicates that they may pose a significant risk at EU level, but for which monitoring data are insufficient. Monitoring of these substances is required in all Member States for a certain period, so that enough evidence can be collected for or against their future inclusion in the list of priority substances. In 2019, as required by Article 8(c) of the amended EQSD, the Commission adopted a communication on a strategic approach to pharmaceuticals in the environment. It identifies actions in six areas that could help to reduce the potential risk from pharmaceuticals in the environment. The areas cover all stages of the lifecycle of pharmaceuticals, from design and production through usage to disposal and waste management. There are actions to, for example: raise awareness and promote prudent use; incentivise ‘green design’; reduce emissions from manufacturing; improve risk assessment; reduce waste; assess the feasibility of upgrading selected urban waste water treatment plants to reduce the presence of pharmaceuticals in effluent; and gather more monitoring data. The Groundwater Directive As required by WFD Article 17, the 2006 Groundwater Directive (GWD), another ‘daughter’ of the WFD, has as its main focus the prevention and control of groundwater pollution, with a view to ensuring the protection of drinking water sources and of dependent ecosystems. The GWD was introduced to clarify the criteria in the WFD for good chemical status of groundwater, a task too complex to finalise at the time the WFD was adopted. The GWD provides EU-wide groundwater quality standards for nitrates and pesticides (individual and total, in Annex I). For other pollutants, the setting of EU-wide standards was not at the time considered a viable option due to the high variability of many substances in groundwater and diverse range of hydrogeological settings and aquifer types. Consequently, the GWD currently requires Member States to set their own threshold values for application at Member State, river basin district (RBD) or water body level for all pollutants putting groundwater bodies at risk of failing to meet good chemical status, taking into account identified risks and the minimum lists of pollutants in Annex II to the GWD. Since groundwater moves slowly through the subsurface, the impact of anthropogenic activities may last for a relatively long time, which means that pollution that occurred some decades ago — whether from agriculture, industry or other human activities — may still be threatening groundwater quality today and, in some cases, will continue to do so for several generations to come. For this reason, the WFD requires measures to prevent or limit the input of pollutants into groundwater, and the GWD emphasises that upward pollution trends must be identified and reversed. The GWD was revised in 2014. The changes to its Annex II included adding common principles for the determination of natural background levels (an important factor behind the high variation in threshold values) in Part A. In addition, nitrites, and phosphorus (total)/phosphates were added to the minimum list of pollutants for Member States to consider when setting threshold values. Finally, the revision introduced the need to incorporate clarifications and complementary provisions in the RBMPs regarding the way the procedure set out in Part A of the Annex has been followed. This revision also acknowledged the need to establish a voluntary watch list mechanism to increase monitoring and knowledge of substances posing a potential risk to groundwater (including emerging pollutants). The Floods Directive The main objective of the Floods Directive is to reduce and manage the risks that floods pose to human health, the environment, cultural heritage and economic activity. In this way, it complements the WFD. The Floods Directive covers river floods, flash floods, urban floods, sewer floods and coastal floods. The Floods Directive requires Member States to set objectives for flood risk management and to draw up measures to achieve them. It requires EU Member States to undertake the following, for each river basin or other management unit. ·A preliminary flood risk assessment, including a map of the river basin. This assessment consists of a description of: (i) past floods; (ii) flooding processes and their sensitivity to change; (iii) development plans; (iv) an assessment of the likelihood of future floods based on hydrological data, types of floods and the projected impact of climate change and of land use trends; and (v) a forecast of the estimated consequences of future floods. ·Flood hazard maps and flood risk maps (damage maps), for high-risk areas, i.e. those that could be flooded with a high probability (a 10-year return period), with a medium probability (a 100-year return period) and with a low probability (extreme events).

·Preparation and implementation of flood risk management plans, aimed at achieving the required levels of protection.



2.2.Integrated water and flood management Challenges for water policy and flood management One of the main challenges for water policy to be effective is that some of the pressures on water, and the measures required to mitigate them, are location-specific. This is demonstrated in Figure 1, which presents a view of the different pressures on European rivers. It shows that there are significant differences between Member States (and even within a Member State or river basin district) depending on the pressure. Figure 1: Maps of pressures on European rivers; (a) nitrogen concentration; (b) phosphorous concentration; (c) pollution from urban run-off; (d) water demand; (e) preservation of low flow at 25th percentile; (f) preservation of low flow at 10th percentile; (g) infrastructure in floodplains; (h) natural areas in floodplains; (i) urban areas in floodplains; (j) agricultural areas in floodplains; (k) artificial land cover in catchment area; (l) agricultural land cover in catchment area. (Source: Grizetti et al., 2017) At the same time, some pressures require a similar approach across Europe. Many water issues are also transboundary: all Member States except Malta and Cyprus share international river basins, meaning that changes in one Member State can have an impact on the hydrology or water quality in other Member States. This requires an integrated approach, both across administrative borders and across different policy areas. Taking into account the principle of subsidiarity, the Directives covered by this fitness check responded to these challenges by introducing a flexible framework which promotes an integrated approach to deal with all different pressures on water across different policy areas. This leaves considerable discretion to the Member States to set location-specific objectives, methodologies and measures, while ensuring harmonisation and a level playing field.

Innovative approach to water management The WFD introduced an innovative approach to manage and protect aquatic ecosystems in a holistic way, rather than focusing only on specific aspects of water quality. This approach considers all uses and users of water and the interlinkages between them. First, rather than taking an approach that is only focussed on pollution control, the objective of the WFD is to ensure ecosystem integrity, which is translated into the ‘one-out-all-out’ principle. For surface waters, this means that if one of the parameters that determines ecological or chemical status is less than good, the water body’s status will not be classified as good. It is thus not sufficient that priority substances in a surface water body are below the thresholds (good chemical status); to be in good status, the water body also needs to be in good ecological status, i.e. to meet certain requirements defined by the presence of e.g. phytoplankton (micro-algae), macrophytes (water plants), benthic invertebrates or fish. For groundwater bodies, the one-out-all-out principle means that if one of the parameters that determines chemical status or quantitative status is less than good, the water body’s status will not be classified as good (see Figure 2). Figure 2: Assessment of status of surface waters and groundwater according to the WFD (Source: EEA (2018) State of European Waters) Second, rather than limiting the management focus to ad hoc mitigation measures, the formal steps of the river basin management planning process guarantee an integrated approach by following the ‘DPSIR model’, which takes into account the interdependencies between drivers, pressures, status, impacts and results (see Figure 3): ·Article 5 requires Member States to undertake a pressures and impacts analysis, i.e. an assessment of drivers and pressures affecting the water environment, along with an assessment of the sensitivity of water bodies to the pressures identified and of the risk of failing to achieve good water status. ·Article 8 requires Member States to establish monitoring programmes to ensure that the state of the water environment is known, and that changes in this state over time can be captured and understood. ·Article 11 requires Member States to deliver a programme of measures (i.e. responses) to address the drivers, pressures and/or states. Figure 3: The DPSIR framework (Source: Wood, 2019)

To reach the environmental objectives, the WFD requires Member States to implement the ‘basic measures’. These include measures that pre-date the WFD (Art 11(3)(a) and measures that are listed in Article 11(3)(b-l) (see Table 1 below). If these measures are not sufficient to reach the WFD’s objectives, Member States need to implement ‘supplementary measures’. Basic measures in the form of laws pre-dating WFD (Art 11(3)a) Basic measures under the WFD (Art 11(3)b-l) -Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC) -Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) -Sewage Sludge Directive (86/278/EEC) -Drinking Water Directive (80/778/EEC) as amended by Directive (98/83/EC) -Bathing Water Directive (76/160/EEC). -Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (96/61/EC) -Major Accidents (Seveso) Directive (96/82/EC) -Birds Directive (79/409/EEC) -Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) -Environmental Impact Assessment Directive (85/337/EEC) b) measures to implement Article 9 (cost recovery) c) measures to promote efficient and sustainable water use d) measures to protect drinking water quality and reduce the treatment required e) measures to control abstraction from surface and groundwater f) measures to control recharging of groundwater g) measures to control point source discharges h) measures to prevent or control inputs of diffuse pollutants i) measures to address any other significant impacts on status, in particular the hydromorphological condition j) measures to prohibit direct discharges to groundwater k) measures to eliminate or reduce pollution by priority substances l) measures to prevent accidental pollution Table 1 — Classification of basic measures under the WFD Achieving the WFD’s environmental objectives is thus conditional on full implementation of a number of other pieces of EU law. Third, rather than following the regular administrative units of management, the WFD is based on integrated planning and management at river basin level, from the characterisation of water bodies to the definition and implementation of measures to reach the environmental objectives. The framework for integrated floods management in the Floods Directive takes a similar approach to that developed for the WFD. It requires the planning of measures that includes river basins and coasts and widens the management focus to flood prevention, preparedness and protection. Six-yearly reporting cycles to report on the approach taken One of the governance innovations brought about by the WFD and the FD is the streamlined reporting of Member States’ water policy. Figure 4 presents an overview of these reporting cycles since the adoption of the Directives. Figure 4: Overview of the deadlines and reporting cycles River basin management plans are documents that contain the full analysis (e.g. characterisation of the water bodies, assessment of drivers and pressures, economic analysis, etc.) for every river basin district. Based on the RBMP, the programme of measures (PoMs) lists measures that will be implemented in the river basin district to reach the objectives, taking the form both of ‘basic measures’ and 'supplementary measures'. The RBMPs and PoMs have to be produced and reported to the Commission in six-year cycles starting from 2009. In addition, Member States voluntarily report data electronically to the Water Information System for Europe (WISE) hosted by the European Environment Agency. This approach ensures full transparency of the analysis that underlies local water policy, while making sure that methodologies are comparable across the different Member States. The Floods Directive takes a similar three-step cyclical approach to flood risk management by requiring Member States to first prepare preliminary flood risk assessments (PFRAs), leading to the identification of areas that are at significant risk of flooding. This is followed by the preparation of flood hazard and risk maps (FHRMs), showing how far floods might extend, the depth or level of water, and the impacts there might be on human health, the economy, environment and cultural heritage. The final step in each cycle is the preparation of flood risk management plans (FRMPs) and the identification of the necessary measures to reach the objectives in the FRMPs. The timing of the flood risk management plans is synchronised with the river basin management plans to maximise synergies and links; starting from the first FRMPs in 2015, the management cycles for the WFD and FD coincided. Consequently, since then Member States report their RBMPs and second FRMPs at the same time. After each update of the river basin management plans and flood risk management plans, the Commission must publish a report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the implementation of the Directives that give rise to the respective management plans. The Commission report includes a review of progress in implementing the Directives and an assessment of the plans, including suggestions on how to improve future plans. The implementation reports are available at the following web pages: ·WFD: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/impl_reports.htm ·FD: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/flood_risk/implementation_reports.htm The common implementation strategy Since 2001, the implementation of the WFD and its ‘daughter directives’ has been supported by informal cooperation under the ‘common implementation strategy’ (CIS). The strategy, which is not formally provided for in the legislation, is led by ‘Water Directors’ of Member States and the Commission, with the participation of all relevant stakeholders and European Economic Area/EFTA countries. As of 2007, the common implementation strategy also covers the Floods Directive. The common implementation strategy has delivered more than 30 guidance documents and policy papers and served as a platform for exchange of experience and implementation of best practices among Member States. Its focus is now increasingly on the exchange of best practice and on the discussion of policy developments. 2.3.Intervention logic The set of directives covered by this fitness check offers a comprehensive regulatory basis to manage the EU’s fresh, coastal and transitional water resources. Figure 5 presents the intervention logic for the Directives. The societal needs addressed by the Directives are (i) water of adequate quality and quantity for all relevant uses, (ii) resilient aquatic ecosystems; and (iii) reduction and mitigation of the adverse effects of floods.

These needs are addressed by the Directives’ objectives, which are to: (i) ensure that water bodies reach good status and do not deteriorate; and (ii) manage flood risks. To achieve these long-term objectives, the WFD (supported by the EQSD and the GWD) and the FD set out an assessment framework. The framework requires Member States to: (i) make a comprehensive assessment of pressures, impacts and status of the aquatic environment; and (ii) carry out an economic analysis of water uses to enable them to identify the most cost-effective set of measures in every river basin district. The outcome of this analysis is a set of instruments, namely the river basin management plans, the programmes of measures and the flood risk management plans (see Section 2.2 above). It is difficult to isolate the legislation’s short-term direct results and impacts due to the complexity of the policy framework and the fact that nature needs time to respond; results of measures may thus take some time to materialise. Eventually, however, the impacts of the measures should coincide with the Directives’ objectives and lead to more global impacts such as the regeneration and preservation of ecosystems and a reduction in the adverse consequences associated with floods. The pressures that the Directives are meant to address and the results of the measures taken can be influenced by external factors over which the Directives have no control. For example, increased global emissions of greenhouse gases will likely exacerbate the consequences and frequency of floods in the EU. These jeopardise the expected results of the Floods Directive, but are beyond the control of the Directive itself. Furthermore, the expected effects of the Directives are also influenced by legislation and strategies in other sectoral policies, which may greatly affect the status of water bodies. Figure 5: Simplified intervention logic of the Directives subject to this fitness check 2.4.Baseline The EU Better Regulation guidelines acknowledge that it is difficult to identify a robust baseline, i.e. a counterfactual situation if EU laws had not been adopted. This is particularly true for the Water Framework Directive, for several reasons. First, there are no quantitative data available from impact assessments. The original proposals for the GWD, for the EQSD and its revision, and for the FD were subject to impact assessments. These included some information on the situation prevailing when they were carried out, for example on concentrations of candidate priority substances. However, they do not give a comprehensive picture (of status and management) before the WFD’s introduction, meaning that they do not allow for comparison with the situation today. The WFD was not subject to an impact assessment before it was adopted in 2000. Second, the WFD has led to the repeal and consolidation of a number of directives. It also refers to a number of ‘basic measures’ required by other EU legislation such as the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive and the Nitrates Directive, which pre-date the WFD’s entry into force. A study carried out for the Directorate-General for the Environment has confirmed that it can be difficult to distinguish between pre-WFD measures and WFD measures. A third complication is that the data available cannot be compared or compiled into a time trend. The Commission’s 5th implementation report, for example, explains the difficulty in comparing the status of individual water bodies between the first and second RBMPs. This is due in many cases to the re‑delineation of the water bodies in question, but also, more generally, to the introduction of better methodologies and standards for classification and improved monitoring after the first cycle. 3.Implementation and state of play 3.1.State of European waters Since the adoption of the WFD, the quantity and quality of the available evidence on water status and pressures has grown significantly. Many Member States and river basin districts have invested in new or better ecological and chemical monitoring programmes, with a greater number of monitoring sites and the inclusion of more chemicals and quality elements. Surface waters and groundwater have been monitored at more than 130,000 monitoring sites over the past 6 years. In the second set of RBMPs, this has resulted in both a marked reduction in the proportion of water bodies with unknown status and in a clear increase in confidence in status assessments. Based on the data reported by the Member States in their second RBMPs, the European Environment Agency published a report on the state of European waters,. Overall, the report shows that the WFD’s objectives have not yet been reached in the majority of the EU’s water bodies (see Figure 6). The recently published State of the Environment Report 2020 confirms this conclusion, putting it in the more general framework of the gaps observed between the current state of the environment and existing EU policy targets. In assessing the state of progress towards the objectives, two factors should be noted. First, water takes time to react to measures (see Section 5.1). Second, the starting conditions differ widely between Member States, depending on the relative condition of each of their water bodies at the time when measures started to be applied. Surface water bodies On a European scale, around 40% of surface water bodies have good or high ecological status or potential, with lakes and coastal waters having better status than rivers and transitional waters (Figure 6 — map a). There has been limited change in ecological status since the first RBMPs were reported. Figure 6: Status of EU water bodies in river basins — (a) ecological status of surface water bodies, b) chemical status of surface water bodies, c) chemical status of groundwater bodies, d) quantitative status of groundwater bodies (Source: EEA (2018) State of European Waters)

For surface waters, good chemical status is determined by limits (environmental quality standards) on the concentrations of certain pollutants found across the EU, known as priority substances. In the second RBMPs, 38% of surface water bodies had good chemical status, while 46% had not achieved good chemical status and for 16% their status was unknown (Figure 6 — map b). Groundwater With respect to groundwater, 74% and 89% of the area of groundwater bodies had good chemical and quantitative status respectively (Figure 6 — maps c and d). This is a small improvement in status compared to the first RBMPs. Pressures Figure 7 provides an overview of the main significant pressures on surface and groundwater bodies. The most common pressure for surface water bodies is hydromorphology, which affects 40% of surface water bodies, followed by diffuse source pollution (38%), atmospheric deposition (38%), point source pollution (18%) and abstraction (7%). For groundwater, the main significant pressures are diffuse source pollution (35% of groundwater area), abstraction (17%) and point source pollution (13%). Figure 7: Significant pressures in the second RBMPs (Source: EEA (2018) State of European Waters) Figure 8 presents an overview per Member State for these significant pressures (except atmospheric deposition) on surface water bodies. Figure 8: Main significant pressures on surface water bodies per Member State (Source: Data reported by Member States in WISE) Hydromorphology Hydromorphology is a term used to describe the hydrological and geomorphological characteristics (including continuity) of rivers, lakes, and coastal and transitional waters, including the underlying processes from which they result. Water and sediments interact at different scales and shape the physical environment, determining physico-chemical processes and providing a physical habitat for the biota. Hydromorphological alterations are associated with water storage, irrigation, flood protection, navigation, urban development and changes in land use. Hydromorphological pressures reported by Member States include physical alterations (26%), dams, barriers and locks (24%), hydrological alterations (7%) or other hydromorphological alterations (7%). Diffuse source pollution Diffuse source pollution is mostly due to excessive emissions of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and chemicals such as pesticides, as well as deposition of some persistent substances from the atmosphere. For surface waters, agricultural production is a major source of diffuse pollution (25%). Other drivers include rural dwellings (emissions from households not connected to sewerage systems (11%), and run-off from urban areas (3%) and forested land (4%). Nutrient enrichment causes eutrophication, which in turn leads to the loss of aquatic biodiversity and a reduction in fish stocks. Excessive nutrient enrichment can be dangerous for human health, e.g. owing to toxic algal blooms, and can impair the use of water for drinking and bathing. It imposes significant costs on water companies to treat water. The primary impact on groundwater is from chemical pollution (22% of groundwater body area), followed by nutrient pollution (18%).



Point source pollution

The point source pressures on surface waters relate mostly to effluent discharges of pollutants from urban waste water (12%), followed to a lesser degree by discharges from storm water overflows (4%), industrial sites (3%) and aquaculture. The point source pressures affecting groundwater relate more to the leaching of hazardous substances from landfills and contaminated sites, including industrial sites, waste disposal sites, and mining areas, together with urban waste water. Abstraction Water abstraction is a key pressure on many water bodies, in particular during temporary periods of drought or in water scarcity-prone areas. Abstraction is a significant pressure for 7% of surface water bodies in the second RBMPs, with higher regional importance in southern Europe (e.g. in Spain, Italy and France). Abstraction (mainly for agriculture and public water supply) and artificial recharge are the main pressures on groundwater bodies in poor quantitative status. 3.2.Assessment of the second river basin management plans and first flood risk management plans In February 2019, the Commission published an assessment report of the Member States’ second river basin management plans and first flood risk management plans for 2016-2021, including some recommendations. The findings of this assessment are part of this fitness check and are reported in the analysis of the different evaluation criteria. Key points on the second cycle of RBMPs Governance Member States have generally strengthened coordination among competent authorities in charge of water and other related policies although more progress is needed. International cooperation has improved in some basins, but additional efforts are still needed in many others, both between EU countries and for river basins shared with non-EU countries. Public consultation and the active involvement of stakeholders have been boosted in most Member States. Knowledge base The implementation of the WFD has led to a significantly better knowledge of the main pressures putting water bodies at risk of not achieving good status. Member States have made significant efforts over the past decade to ensure deployment of monitoring networks and to improve the methods for assessing the ecological and chemical status of surface waters. This was reflected in a significant reduction in the number of water bodies for which the status was unknown (as compared to the first RBMPs). Knowledge of the status of groundwater bodies and of the pressures affecting them has also improved across all Member States. Monitoring networks and methodologies Nonetheless, the report found that there are still some gaps in the monitoring networks, in particular in relation to hydromorphological aspects, and in some countries for some of the biological quality elements. There are also some significant gaps in monitoring and assessment of specific chemicals. This is partly because EQSs for some substances of potential concern at national level have not always been derived in accordance with the technical guidance developed under the common implementation strategy, sometimes resulting in their not being identified as RBSPs. Furthermore, the analytical methods used for some RBSPs and priority substances have not met the requirements of the relevant Commission Directive as regards their sensitivity. Finally, the inventories of emissions for priority substances continue to be insufficiently developed, in particular for diffuse sources. For groundwater, there are also a number of gaps for both quantitative and chemical status monitoring. Measures to address specific pressures The ‘basic measures’ under the WFD have generally been defined, but their implementation varies strongly between Member States and by type of measure. Despite the significant pressures from agricultural activities, progress in this domain depends highly on the effect of voluntary measures, often in the context of the common agricultural policy. On water abstraction, some gaps have been identified on controls and registration, including exemptions for small abstractions. Since the first cycle, significant improvements have been achieved on measures to tackle pollutants causing failures of chemical or ecological status, as well as on measures to reduce the negative environmental impacts of significant hydromorphological pressures. However, little progress has been made on protected areas for drinking water and on nature protected areas. Finally, in about half of the Member States, droughts were considered a relevant feature for water management. One of the key measures recommended by the Commission to mitigate drought impacts is a drought management plan, but this was not adopted in all relevant river basin districts. Funding of measures and cost recovery Overall, the Commission’s implementation report found that the lack of funding is a significant obstacle to implementing the measures. Only 46% of RBDs reported that funding was secured to implement measures in all relevant sectors, while 17% reported having no financing secured at all. A number of Member States have upgraded their water pricing policies and improved the cost recovery of water services. However, significant gaps remain in translating these improved elements of economic analysis into concrete measures to internalise environmental and resource costs. Exemptions The Commission’s implementation report also found that another hurdle towards effective implementation is the extensive use of exemptions, in many cases without appropriate and detailed justification. In particular, the time taken to achieve the objectives has been extended (under Article 4(4)) without a clear strategy to achieve good status by the extended deadline. It is not clear whether the necessary measures are being implemented in the meantime, which makes it unclear whether the WFD’s objectives will be reached by 2027.

The next round of river basin management plans and programmes of measures will play a key role in ensuring the necessary progress towards achieving the environmental objectives by the 2027 deadline. To support and steer Member States in this process, the Commission formulated recommendations addressed to all of them in its latest implementation report, complemented by Member State-specific recommendations. The EU‑level recommendations call on Member States to: (i) continue improving stakeholder involvement; (ii) clearly identify the gap to good status for individual pressures and water bodies, and design, fund and implement targeted PoMs to close it; (iii) reduce reliance on exemptions and improve transparency over the justifications used; and (iv) ensure the proper implementation of cost recovery. Key points regarding the first FRMPs Objectives and measures All Member States have set objectives for the management of flood risk and all included measures in their plans for achieving the stated objectives. There is still scope, however, to better detail the objectives and explain more clearly how the chosen measures will be effective in achieving these objectives. Most Member States have identified possible funding sources but did not make any budgetary commitments for the planned measures in their FRMPs. In all Member States, a broad range of stakeholders were involved in the preparation of the FRMPs. Integration with other policies Most Member States have sought synergies and coordination with the environmental objectives set out in the WFD. A total of 14 Member States have made specific links between their FRMPs and their national climate change adaptation strategies. In the second round of FRMPs, Member States will need to further refine and complement their analysis and set out the necessary measures. To support them in this process, the Commission’s recommendations to all Member States (in addition to Member State-specific comments) were to: (i) clearly link the implementation of measures to the achievement of objectives so as to assess progress from the second cycle onwards; and (ii) identify specific funding sources to secure the implementation of measures. 4.Method 4.1.Process The Commission announced this fitness check in October 2017 with the publication of the roadmap. This set out the scope and purpose of the fitness check and allowed for feedback from stakeholders. In reply, 82 responses were received, which were taken into account in the further process. The fitness check was closely coordinated with the evaluation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive given the close links between the different directives. For further procedural information about this fitness check, see Annex 1. The Commission also organised an extensive stakeholder consultation in accordance with the consultation strategy established at the beginning of the process. The consultation consisted of: (i) a general public consultation, which ran for 6 months; (ii) a targeted expert consultation; and (iii) several focus groups and stakeholder workshops. ·The public consultation received more than 370,000 unique responses in total, which is an exceptionally high number. The vast majority of the responses (more than 368,000) were identical and thus were identified as being part of campaigns promoted by several environmental organisations. The remaining 1,944 responses were analysed separately. ·The targeted expert consultation consisted of an online survey, which was filled in by 205 individuals, and 74 interviews with selected experts. The three focus groups were attended by more than 200 people. ·The Commission also received 90 unique position papers from various associations and organisations. A ‘consultation group’ of Member States’ Water Directors also drafted a paper on the Water Framework Directive as an input for this fitness check, and this was also considered. ·The fitness check also includes the findings of the 5th European Water Conference, which was jointly organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for the Environment and the Austrian EU Presidency in September 2018. All these stakeholder views were thoroughly analysed and synthesised by a contractor, and the key points were integrated into the replies to the fitness check’s five evaluation criteria (Section 5). For a more detailed summary of the public consultation, including the summary of the views of the campaign respondents, see Annex 2. 4.2.Evidence gathering To support its analysis, the Commission awarded a study contract to a consortium of experts, aimed at creating a robust evidence base. The contractor’s analysis included an extensive review of all the relevant information and evidence that is available on the implementation and background of the four Directives. A non-exhaustive list of key sources that were consulted includes the following: -Commission implementation reports of the RBMPs and FRMPs -the 2012 fitness check of the EU’s freshwater policy (‘Blueprint’)

-reports from the European Court of Auditors -CIS technical reports -studies and reports from Member States (including RBMPs and FRMPs) -European Environment Agency reports and Joint Research Centre studies -statistical data (e.g. from the European Environment Agency and Eurostat) -EU-funded studies and research projects -academic papers -position papers from Member States and interest groups. Respondents to the public consultation further complemented the knowledge base for the fitness check by sharing data, studies and reports. More information about the methods and evidence gathering can be found in Annex 3. The complete list of references used in this report can be found in Annex 4. 4.3.Limitations — robustness of findings The EU Better Regulation guidelines acknowledge that it can be difficult to identify a robust baseline or to make a quantitative analysis. They confirm that in many cases EU evaluations have to rely on qualitative, reasoned arguments about the likely contribution of an EU intervention to the changes observed. This is particularly true for the Directives subject to this fitness check, for which data are scarce and often difficult to compare, especially on costs and benefits. The challenges specific to setting the baseline for this fitness check are discussed in detail in Section 2. Nonetheless, given the thorough triangulation behind the assessment through different sources used to underpin this fitness check (see Section 4.2), the overall findings and conclusions are considered robust. 5.Analysis 5.1. Effectiveness The effectiveness analysis considers how successful the Directives have been in achieving or progressing towards their objectives (Section 5.1.1). It also looks in more detail at how the Directives have changed water management practices and governance in the Member States (Section 5.1.2) and which factors contributed to or stood in the way of achieving the Directives’ objectives (Section 5.1.3). 5.1.1: ‘To what extent are the Directives performing as expected?’ Overall response: Progress towards the environmental objectives of the Water Framework Directive, notably the restoration and improvement of status of water bodies towards ‘good’, is at different stages. Overall, however, it has come about slower than anticipated. For well over half of Europe’s surface water bodies and for a smaller percentage of the groundwater bodies, there is a gap to good status, for which the deadline was 2015 except in duly justified cases. A large majority of the respondents to the public consultation consider EU water legislation to have been very effective or moderately effective in preventing deterioration of status. The noticeable progress in individual parameters is to a degree masked by the one-out-all-out principle. The communication of results of efforts to implement the WFD is often seen as hampered by the application of the one-out-all-out principle. Progress in individual parameters has been better reflected in recent reports, and further efforts to ensure transparent communication towards citizens are ongoing. The Environmental Quality Standards Directive and Groundwater Directive have performed as expected. As to the EQSD, there has been improvement in chemical status, which, for certain individual priority substances, has been substantial. However, certain persistent individual substances (e.g. mercury) have a significant impact on status but cannot easily be tackled. Progress under the GWD has been forthcoming, and groundwater has a comparatively better status than surface water in the EU today. While the overall knowledge of pollutants has increased across the EU, for emerging pollutants there is as yet no comprehensive data. For both the EQSD and the GWD, the process of keeping up with science has proven slower than anticipated, and updates to the list of priority substances and to the list of substances in Annex I to the GWD involve lengthy and heavy procedures. For the Floods Directive, as intended, all Member States have taken action and are in the middle of the first FRMP implementation period (2016-2021), applying measures to reduce flood risk. As yet there is no information on how far measures have been implemented, or on how far flood risk has been reduced. The Water Framework Directive Environmental objectives The environmental objectives of the WFD include both ensuring that water bodies’ status does not deteriorate and that they achieve good status (Art 4(1), see also Section 2.1). Depending on how far a water body has progressed on the path towards good status, the two objectives may be reachable only in sequence, with non-deterioration already constituting an important step towards good status.

Good status The European Environment Agency’s 2018 State of Water report and the Commission’s assessment report of the second RBMPs showed that a significant part of Europe’s water bodies has not yet met the good status objectives laid down in the WFD. These objectives had to be reached by 2015, with the possibility to rely on exemptions if certain conditions are met (see Section 2.1). For surface water bodies, the WFD’s objectives have only been achieved for 40% for ecological status and 38% for chemical status. The situation is better for groundwater. About 84% of groundwater bodies (representing 74% of the total groundwater body area) have good groundwater chemical status, while 92% of groundwater bodies (representing 89% of the total groundwater body area) have good status. No substantial improvement in water bodies in terms of their overall status could be demonstrated compared to the first cycle. There are several reasons why progress has been limited, and why no substantial progress in water bodies’ overall status appears to have been made between the two cycles. First, the second RBMPs (due in 2015) generally only show status classification up to 2012-2013, and at that time many measures were only in the process of being implemented. In addition, in some cases, nature’s response time is slow and so it takes time before measures take effect. A second explanation is that due to increased monitoring, some water bodies previously classified as ‘unknown’ were now reported as ‘less than good’. Furthermore, in the second cycle, overall stricter methodologies were often used due to the harmonisation of methodologies. Finally, the effect of the one-out-all-out principle is also important. Under this principle, if the status of one quality element is less than good, the overall status of the water body will also be less than good, irrespective of the status of other quality elements. While this principle is essential for integrated water management to protect ecosystems, it makes it difficult to show progress in a water body, as the status of that water body will not change until all other problems are also addressed. The one-out-all-out principle is an issue particularly with respect to ubiquitous, persistent bioaccumulative and toxic substances (uPBTs). The persistence of such substances means that they do not react quickly to any measures, masking progress towards good status in other pollutants. As can be seen in Figure 9, while only 38% of surface water bodies have good status, 81% would achieve good chemical statusif uPBTs were not taken into account. Indeed, only a few individual pollutants, the most common being mercury, have a large impact on status. Action is being taken both at EU and international level to reduce the emissions of mercury and other pollutants (e.g. through the Minamata Convention), which has resulted in improvements in the levels for some individual substances. However, the concentrations in water remain too high in a large number of EU water bodies, and there are no realistic options to reduce those levels rapidly. Figure 9: Chemical status of surface water bodies (SWB), with and without uPBTs (Source: EEA (2018) State of European Waters) Non-deterioration Aquatic ecosystems are among the most degraded habitats, yet EU-specific time trend data that sufficiently go back in time are rather scarce. This lack of time trend data makes it impossible to have a systematic overview of the contribution of the EU water legislation to halting the degradation of water quality in the EU. Although the different actors involved in water quality management are generally aware of this contribution, they do not generally have the hard data to substantiate it. Their views are reflected in the results of the public consultation, where 76% of the respondents consider EU water legislation to have been very effective or moderately effective in preventing deterioration of status. Of the responses indicating ‘very effective’ or ‘moderately effective’ (n=483), most came from EU citizens (40%) and industry (28%). Likewise, representatives from industry acknowledged in bilateral exchanges that the WFD and its daughter directives have been instrumental in the protection and recovery of water bodies across Europe. In the absence of systematic data, some punctual examples can be found in the literature. One example is a recent article on the decline of seagrass meadows in Europe between 1869 and 2016. The article demonstrates how one third of European seagrass was lost due to disease, deteriorated water quality and coastal development, with losses peaking in the 1970s and 1980s. It shows how seagrass loss rates started to slow down towards the end of the 20th century and points out the WFD’s role in reversing the trend, including by bringing seagrass to the attention of policy-makers and making it mandatory that seagrass meadows be restored in order to reach good ecological status by 2015. A framework for the protection of European waters One key achievement of the WFD is that it has established a framework for the protection of waters (as required by Article 1, see also Section 2.1). This framework has brought about a systemic change in water governance that allows for flexibly tailoring water management to location-specific conditions while facilitating coordination across administrative and geographical boundaries. This is not a minor achievement, as it put in place the governance framework that enables Member States to work towards achieving the WFD’s environmental objectives. This point is explained in detail in Section 5.1.2. Challenges One drawback of an approach based on subsidiarity is that for certain issues there are considerable variations in how Member States have implemented the Directives, where a more uniform approach may have been desirable. These variations may in some cases be due to local differences, but in many cases can only be explained by various other factors, such as political will (see also Section 5.2.1 on cost recovery), resistance to change or lack of technical capacity (see e.g. Section 5.2.3 on monitoring). One example of an issue where methodological harmonisation has been insufficient is the way in which hydromorphological quality elements are linked to biological quality elements, which varies between Member States. Likewise, the implementation of Article 4(7) of the WFD on how to deal with new physical modifications to water bodies differs considerably from one Member State to another. Similarly, the way in which Member States designate specific water bodies as heavily modified, and the way in which good ecological potential is defined in those water bodies, are also highly variable. Work on these aspects is ongoing, and the results are expected to contribute to a more harmonised approach in the third cycle of RBMPs. Another example is the large variability in the river basin-specific pollutants that have been identified by the Member States. While it is expected that different pollutants are identified as posing risk in different RBDs, there is no clear justification for the standards used for the same pollutant to be very different for different RBDs. This issue is further discussed in Section 5.3.1 on coherence. The issue of variability in the number of pollutants posing a risk to groundwater bodies and the ranges of threshold values are discussed further below in this section. The Environmental Quality Standards Directive

Chemical status of surface waters is assessed against a relatively short list of important pollutants called priority substances listed in Annex X to the WFD. The concentration of a substance in the water is compared with an environmental quality standard (EQS) set in the EQSD. Substances are included in the list of priority substances based on the scientific assessment of their toxicity to humans and the aquatic environment, e.g. because they are directly toxic, limit organisms’ ability to reproduce or because they bio-accumulate in food chains and have the potential to cause cancer. Member States are making significant progress in tackling certain individual priority substances Even if no progress in the chemical status of surface water bodies could be observed between the first and second RBMPs — mostly due to the presence of ubiquitous persistent, bio-accumulative and toxic (uPBTs) substances — there have been improvements in relation to other priority substances. For example, a reduction has been noted in the number of water bodies failing to meet standards for several metals (cadmium, lead and nickel) and some pesticides. A comparison of the chemical status reported in the first and second RBMPs shows that chemical status has improved in transitional and coastal waters, remained similar in rivers and declined slightly in lakes (Figure 10). The proportion of water bodies with unknown status has dropped significantly. Consequently, knowledge on chemical status has improved, but in some cases this additional knowledge led to water bodies which had unknown status being classified as failing to achieve good chemical status. Figure 10: Change in chemical status of surface water bodies, by water category (Source: EEA (2018) State of European Waters) Member States are making significant progress in tackling certain individual priority substances, but are experiencing difficulties in dealing with mercury, pBDEs and PAHs. For several pollutants, one third of water bodies reduced concentrations between the first and second RBMPs (Figure 11). In the case of cadmium, nickel and lead, 943 water bodies improved in status between the first and second RBMPs, compared with 2,137 continuing to fail in the second RBMPs. On pesticides, 571 water bodies improved from failing to good, compared with 621 water bodies still failing in the second RBMPs. If this rate of development continues during the next cycle, the number of water bodies failing to achieve good status as a result of priority pesticides may become very small. Figure 11: Numbers of water bodies that have improved levels of a priority substance since the first RBMPs and the number that failed to improve in the second RBMPs (Source: EEA (2018) State of European Waters) Increased knowledge of pollutants Overall, the EQSD’s performance has been as could be expected. The setting of EU-level EQS has led to a level playing field for the individual substances, and comparability as regards chemical status assessment. It has also considerably improved knowledge of and data about pollutants in water and aquatic ecosystems. The monitoring requirements included in the WFD and EQSD have, for example, led to very significant developments in analytical methods for certain substances, for which they either did not exist or were not sufficiently sensitive. Furthermore, the monitoring of trends of certain pollutants in sediments and/or biota has provided Member States with information to help them manage the presence in the water environment of pollutants which are no longer authorised. Such pollutants can enter water through illegal use, from poorly protected stores of old chemicals, from landfills or contaminated land (by leaching or run-off) and by atmospheric deposition. Monitoring may also detect spills of authorised chemicals. Such findings should then trigger action by the competent authorities. Chemicals monitoring data should also be used to build emission inventories, but this is not the case in all Member States. Inadequate inventories hinder comprehensive assessment of progress towards the objectives of controlling chemical pollution. Challenges Priority substances Most of the chemicals designated as priority substances in 2001 (and listed with EQSs in 2008) had long been recognised as harmful to, or via, the aquatic environment. They are a small subset of the thousands of chemicals found in the environment, and many have faced restrictions on their use for decades. As already noted, some behave as uPBTs and still cause failure of existing EQS. Furthermore, some countries that have already applied the revised (2013) standards for existing priority substances, which are to be met by 2021. In Sweden, none of the water bodies met the revised biota standard for polybrominated diphenyl ethers. In Luxembourg, none of the surface waters met the revised standard for fluoranthene (a PAH), while the Netherlands expects this to be the case in its next RBMP. Pollutants of emerging concern and mixtures The newly listed priority substances (from 2013) are not yet reflected in the second RBMPs. However, the watch list mechanism, established in 2013 to generate data on pollutants of emerging concern, has resulted in the reporting of data on several emerging pollutants. The latest Commission implementation report highlights the challenge of managing pollutants of emerging concern. For example, in their pressures and impacts analysis, Member States should identify pollutants of national concern (including emerging pollutants) as RBSPs, but since they use different methodologies to select RBSPs, they do not always consistently identify relevant substances. The current priority substances list includes some groups of substances, but most are listed singly. Thousands of other substances are not addressed at all because they are not listed. It has also been recognised that mixtures of substances may have synergistic effects. Because of these issues, attention is increasingly being given to methods for detecting the presence of pollutants and mixtures of pollutants using effect-based methods.

Updating the list of priority substances is a time-consuming process The process for regular revisions of the list of priority substances and of the associated EQS is procedurally heavy, as each revision requires the ordinary legislative procedure. In addition, identifying the substances which should be added to (or removed from) the list of priority substances can also be a lengthy process. This is due to the need: (i) for scientific work to identify the substances that pose risks to the aquatic environment or to human health via the aquatic environment and; (ii) in several cases, to develop adequate analytical methods for those substances. The watch list mechanism introduced in 2013 uses implementing acts to establish and revise the list, and so is much simpler than the co-decision procedure. Nonetheless, the process to update the watch list of substances is still relatively time consuming because of the need to carry out extensive analyses of the risk they may potentially cause and, in some cases, of the need to develop appropriate methods for monitoring their presence in the water. This issue is discussed further in the analysis of relevance (Section 5.4.1). The Groundwater Directive The Groundwater Directive complements the Water Framework Directive in setting up environmental objectives for good groundwater chemical status. Groundwater constitutes the largest reservoir of freshwater in the world, accounting for over 97% of all freshwater available on earth (excluding glaciers and ice caps). It provides a major source of drinking water for many EU citizens as well as the steady base flow of rivers and wetlands. Maintaining this resource and keeping it free of pollution is vital both for humans and for surface-water and terrestrial ecosystems. Once pollutants are in groundwater, recovery can take years or even many decades because of residence times and the slow degradation of pollutants. Progress is slow but can be observed Member States’ reports on the second RBMPs show that 74% of EU groundwater area has good chemical status and 25% has poor chemical status, with 1% of unknown status (Figure 12). Given the long time-scales associated with pollution of groundwater, this is a small but significant improvement since the first RBMPs. Figure 12: Chemical status of groundwater bodies, by area, reported in first and second RBMPs (Source: EEA (2018) State of European Waters) The total groundwater body area with an identified upward trend (9.9% of area) is nearly double that with a trend reversal (5.9% of area). Significant and sustained upward trends were identified for 58 pollutants, mainly nitrates, which were detected in 19 Member States (Figure 13-a). In contrast, 14 Member States reported trend reversals for 65 pollutants (Figure 13-b), mainly nitrates, ammonium, sulphates and chlorides. Figure 13: Pollutants with an upward trend (a) and trend reversal (b) by area of groundwater bodies (Source: EEA (2018) State of European Waters) European Environment Agency data show that there has been a trend reversal in 2007 in nitrate concentrations in groundwater, moving towards the 1992 level (see Figure 14). These improvements are the result of measures to reduce nitrate emissions from agriculture and of improvements in waste water treatment. This is a significant achievement given that the comparatively long residence time of groundwater may cause delays in recovery, in the order of years to decades, between applying nutrient control measures and observing measurable improvements in water quality. Figure 14: Nutrient trends in groundwater (nitrates), 1995-2015) (Source: EEA) Increased knowledge of pollutants In terms of governance, the GWD has significantly contributed to the increased monitoring of groundwater pollutants. Before the WFD, there was no requirement at EU level to monitor diffuse pollution of groundwater, aside from groundwater monitoring under the Nitrates Directive. One concrete example is atrazine, a herbicide whose use is no longer allowed in the EU, and which is also listed as a priority substance. It moves quickly through soil but decays only slowly in water, so its concentrations rose steadily in groundwater, continuing even after its use was banned. The problem was identified initially through the monitoring of pesticides in drinking water, but the long-lasting impact of atrazine use was revealed thanks to the GWD’s monitoring requirements.

Challenges Large variability in the number of pollutants identified by Member States as posing a risk to groundwater bodies Annex II to the GWD includes a minimum list of pollutants for which Member States have to consider setting threshold values. These have to be set for ‘all pollutants which characterise bodies of groundwater as being at risk’. This list identifies the minimum pollutants (9 substances and 1 parameter), and it is up to Member States to identify all other pollutants which may cause risk. This flexibility, which is justified by the different conditions in groundwater bodies all over the EU, has led to significant differences in the number of substances considered, from less than 10 in one Member State to more than 90 in others. A voluntary initiative of several Member States, taken under the common implementation strategy, is setting up a voluntary watch list. This ongoing process aims to: (i) increase the availability of monitoring data on substances posing a risk or potential risk to groundwater bodies (including pollutants of emerging concern); and (ii) facilitate the identification of substances for which quality standards or ‘threshold values’ should be set. This voluntary process could in future support the selection of substances for which quality standards or threshold values need to be established. Similarly to the challenges in surface water, the process of gathering data and producing a watch list can be time consuming, and data gaps make implementing the agreed methodology a complex task (e.g. toxicity and eco-toxicity information is often lacking for emerging pollutants). Nevertheless, two pilot studies have already been developed on per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAs) and the most commonly found pharmaceuticals to guide Member States and support stetting monitoring priorities. Large variability in the threshold values There is also a large variability in the ranges of threshold values across the EU. Some of these variations are logical, as they depend on different natural background levels that depend on the geological nature of the area, but others depend exclusively on the methodologies used to set the threshold values. Table 2 provides an overview of the range of threshold values of pollutants/indicators for which at least 10 Member States have established threshold values. It shows that the values differ by a factor of 1 to 50. During the public consultation, several Member State representatives and NGOs expressed their preference for increasing the number of pollutants in Annex I, with a view to achieving more harmonisation. Substance Number of MS From To Unit Chloride 15 100 350 mg/l Arsenic 17 5 20 µg/l Ammonium 16 0.2 2 mg/l Cadmium 17 2 20 µg/l Tetrachloroethylene 12 1 50 µg/l Trichloroethylene 12 1 50 µg/l Sum of Tetrachloroethylene and Trichloroethylene 14 7.5 10 µg/l Table 2: Pollutants/indicators for which at least 10 Member States have established threshold values, including the range threshold values (Source: European Commission) The last update of the Directive (2014/80/EU) only entered into force in 2016. The update partly addressed this issue, as it requested that Member States provide additional information on the setting of the threshold values. Efforts are also ongoing at technical level within the CIS Working Group on Groundwater to collect additional information on how threshold values are set by Member States. Overall, inputs from NGOs to the consultation and views expressed in the Groundwater Directive focus group suggest that more time is needed to assess whether the parameters included in the GWD Annexes are sufficient and what additional efforts are needed to better harmonise threshold values. The Floods Directive As Member States are still in the first implementation period for the Floods Directive (2016-2021), there is no information yet on the state of implementation of measures included in the first FRMPs or on the degree of flood risk reduction that has been achieved. This information will only be available after 2022, when Member States will publish their second FRMPs. Nonetheless, during the focus group discussions Member State representatives confirmed that so far the Directive is working as intended, with the flexibility and framework of the Directive helping them to work together, communicate with the public and understand risk concepts. According to the European Environment Agency, the Directive is possibly the most advanced flood protection and preparedness legislation worldwide. It has led all Member States to take action concurrently, under the same framework, to prevent or reduce social, economic and environmental damage from flood risk. The Commission’s assessment report of the first FRMPs found that all Member States have set objectives and that most Member States have put in place a monitoring system. At the same time, the Commission’s report found that in several Member States there is still scope to better detail the objectives and explain more clearly how the chosen measures will be effective in achieving these objectives. 5.1.2: ‘How have the Directives changed water management practices and influenced governance and policy-making in Member States?’ Overall response: The Directives have changed water management in the Member States. The Water Framework Directive introduced the principle of integrated water management, addressing aquatic ecosystems as a whole. To protect and restore ecosystems as a whole, integrated water management requires an in-depth understanding of river basins. The WFD’s governance mechanisms provide for monitoring and public participation to guarantee evidence-based policy-making. The increased understanding and knowledge that result from the preparation of the RBMPs and FRMPs and from the sharing of good practices between Member States have led to increased implementation of concrete measures on the ground. Because river basins’ natural and socioeconomic conditions differ from each other, the WFD introduced the organisation of water governance based on river basins (i.e. natural boundaries) rather than administrative or national borders, in line with the principle of subsidiarity. Consequently, Member States have set up many river basin authorities and increased public and stakeholder participation in management planning. Finally, given that almost all Member States share river basins, the WFD also provides for international cooperation, which has become stronger as a result. However, for both the WFD and the Floods Directive, cross-sectoral and cross-border cooperation are not yet carried out to the fullest. The Floods Directive substantially changed the way floods are dealt with, moving from a local protection approach to comprehensive flood risk management based on prevention, preparedness and protection. It introduced governance structures and processes similar to those of the WFD. As a result, in many river basins, the authorities are identical and RBMPs and FRMPs drawn up in coordination. Integrated water management: taking into account the complexity of ecosystems to enable effective water management The Water Framework Directive’s governance mechanism is based on integrated water management, to enable effective and efficient protection and restoration of Europe’s waters. Even though the traditional management practices predicated upon the command-and-control paradigm have been effective and have enabled developed industrial societies to address the most serious health-threatening environmental impacts, they are less suitable for addressing complex environmental problems caused by multiple stressors. This is because the traditional command-and-control approaches consider pressures in isolation and reduce environmental systems to their constituent elements without taking into account the interdependencies and the integrity of the ecosystem as a whole. An additional comment to the public consultation from an energy industry representative acknowledged that the WFD’s systemic approach has proven beneficial.

The WFD’s governance mechanism is therefore designed in such a manner that it enables Member States to address aquatic ecosystems as a whole, set up management plans based on river basins, collaborate across borders and bring together all the relevant knowledge and analyses. Water management targeting the ecosystem as a whole One of the most innovative aspects of the WFD is to base management decisions on the ecological effects of pollution rather than on pollution itself, acknowledging that sensitivity and resilience to pollution vary substantially across ecosystems. Rather than defining ‘good status’ of waters merely based on the absence of pollutants, the WFD aims to protect and restore ecosystems as a whole, by requiring that waters also have good ecological status. This means that the water needs to have sufficient quality to sustain ‘life’ (fauna and flora) at a level comparable to what would exist in the absence of anthropogenic pressures. Ecological status is measured by ‘biological quality elements’ such as fish, invertebrates, macrophytes, phytobenthos and phytoplankton. Apart from the absence of pollutants, fauna and flora also depend on physico-chemical elements such as temperature, nutrients, acidification and dissolved oxygen, as well as on hydromorphology. These are therefore included in the assessment of ecological status as ‘supporting elements’. Hydromorphology is a pressure that on average affects 40% of the EU’s surface waters. Changes in the hydrology and morphology of surface waters (e.g. dams, straightening and channelling of rivers, etc.) have been and are being introduced to allow for expansion of urban areas and agriculture, to produce energy or to ensure flood protection. They generally have a large impact on ecosystems, e.g. by eliminating migration routes for fish or destroying spawning areas. Many dams and other barriers are obsolete and can be removed. Degradation of riparian areas may cause a loss of their capacity to prevent pollutants from entering the water streams. Measures such as re-meandering of rivers which were straightened in the past slow down flow velocity significantly, which can increase water retention in the soil, help control the risk of floods, allow for the re-creation of spawning areas for fish and generally contribute to the development of biodiversity in the riparian areas. River basin-based governance The WFD introduced water governance based on river basins (i.e. natural boundaries) rather than on administrative or national borders. This is because river basins differ from each other both in their natural and socioeconomic conditions and because the status of water bodies downstream depends on appropriate measures being taken upstream, in line with the principle of subsidiarity. As a consequence, all Member States have adapted their administrative and governance systems: some Member States have established specific river basin district authorities, while several others have adapted existing water administrations to ensure better implementation. Transboundary cooperation A part of this new approach to the governance of river basin management introduced by the WFD is the legal requirement for transboundary cooperation. This is important because all Member States except Cyprus and Malta share international river basins (60% of the EU’s territory). Under the WFD, a river basin covering the territory of more than one Member State must be designated as an international river basin district, and the Member States concerned must together ensure coordination with a view to producing a single RBMP. Even if there is quite some variation in the implementation practices in Member States or regions, the Commission’s latest implementation report found that the WFD has generally strengthened cooperation among Member States and with third countries on water management in shared river basins. Governance structures have been improved and further formalised, while RBMPs and the approaches developed in response to pressures have become more joined up. Overall, the implementation report found that the stronger the governance of the basin and the more developed the RBMP, the better the results in terms of achieving WFD objectives. Nonetheless, the Commission’s implementation report also found that there is still some room for improvement, for example on ensuring a harmonised approach for status assessment or the coordination of programmes of measures. The increased exchange of information between Member States is also seen as an important achievement of the Floods Directive. Evidence-based policy-making Integrated water management requires in-depth understanding of river basins. This is why the WFD adopted the ‘drivers-pressures-state-impacts-responses’ (DPSIR) framework, which aims to provide a systemic understanding of the relationship between environmental effects, their causes and measures taken. To gather all the evidence and knowledge needed to deliver the programme of measures (i.e. responses), the WFD requires Member States to: ·undertake an assessment of drivers and pressures affecting the water environment and carry out an economic analysis of water uses (Article 5); ·establish monitoring programmes to ensure that the state of the water environment is known (Article 8); and ·encourage active involvement of all interested parties (Article 14). Monitoring In traditional environmental management approaches, monitoring is mostly used to enforce and monitor compliance. By contrast, the Water Framework Directive gives monitoring a much more prominent and functional role, using it to provide a clear and comprehensive overview of the status and pressures within each river basin district. While some Member States already had monitoring networks in place, the WFD has led to a number of innovations on monitoring, including the monitoring of all types of water bodies, the monitoring of biological elements and the use of a cost-effective, targeted approach (see also Section 5.2.3). First, the WFD requires the monitoring of all types of water bodies. Member States which already carried out some monitoring prior to the WFD tended to focus on rivers, but often did not monitor lakes and coastal waters. The GWD has significantly contributed to the increased monitoring of groundwater pollutants. Aside from groundwater monitoring under the Nitrates Directive, there was no EU requirement to monitor the diffuse pollution of groundwater, even though this had been a known issue since the 1960s. As a result, the level of knowledge of groundwater was weak and patchy. Second, the WFD introduced a more holistic concept of monitoring, which also includes the monitoring of biota and sediments. This innovative monitoring method makes it possible to detect long-term effects as well as very small amounts of pollutants accumulating in the food chain or binding to sediments. The tangible results of this monitoring approach are discussed further in detail in Section 5.1.3, while the fitness of the monitoring requirements is discussed in Section 5.2.3. Public participation Integrated water management requires expertise on a wide range of disciplines, ranging from hydrology, hydraulics, ecology, chemistry, soil sciences, to technology, engineering and economics. In some cases, local stakeholders also hold specific knowledge of the ecosystem at stake that is not always available to water managers. This is why the WFD introduced a requirement to seek the active involvement of all interested parties. As a consequence, Member States have opted, in addition to the formal public consultation processes required by the WFD, to set up a broad range of consultation activities from the national to the sub-basin scale, ranging from water councils or water management boards to round-table discussions on specific topics. Representatives from industry indicated in the public consultation that the WFD’s water governance approach, in which all relevant stakeholders are included, has contributed to providing a more complete picture of the status of water bodies in Europe and is a good basis for further improvement (see also Section 5.2.4).

The Commission’s latest implementation report showed that Member States have made considerable efforts to improve public consultation and strengthen the active involvement of stakeholders. In almost all Member States, a broad range of stakeholder groups were actively involved, in particular NGOs and nature protection groups, local and regional authorities, and representatives from industry and the water supply and sanitation sector. These efforts have led to tangible results. Several Member States made changes, for example, to the methodologies or made other changes such as: (i) adding new river water bodies; (ii) better coordination of policies and finance; (iii) integration of RBMPs in regional programmes; and (iv) improved linkages with flood risk management plans. Several Member States also made commitments on further research and on action to be taken in the next cycle. Another advantage of the WFD’s public participation requirements is that they can increase local ownership. Research has shown that when local communities and business become aware of the specific benefits from good water conditions (e.g. recreation and health, water security), they are more likely to embed in their own agenda actions that support the WFD objectives (e.g. river restoration, water reuse). Examples of governance changes and implementation measures Even if there is as yet no visible impact on the status of water bodies, the increased understanding and knowledge that result from the preparation of the RBMPs and FRMPs and from the sharing of good practices between Member States has led to increased implementation of concrete measures on the ground. A recent study on how Member States have used the DPSIR framework to develop the second RBMPs has demonstrated in detail how Member States have changed their governance systems to address challenges related to nutrients, chemicals, hydromorphology and abstraction. Examples include: (i) revisions of the permitting procedures; (ii) measures to better manage pesticides (e.g. a ‘pesticide passport’ in Czechia and a pesticide tax in Denmark); and (iii) the establishment of water accounts to keep water managers informed on water stocks and flows. Another example is Estonia’s Water Act of 2009, which made it mandatory to guarantee fish passage on barriers in water basins with migratory fish. Although this requirement was made discretionary in 2016, many new fish passes have been installed over the last 10 years thanks to the regulatory requirement to consider fish passage. A report from an environmental NGO similarly presents concrete examples of how the WFD has made a difference in some Member States with regard to agriculture, hydropower, navigation, nature-based solutions, waste water treatment and water pricing. The improved implementation of water pricing and volumetric charging is also a concrete measure that can be attributed to the Water Framework Directive. While its potential as a source of revenues is addressed in Section 5.2.1, water pricing alone is unlikely to be sufficient to ensure sustainable water management and water efficiency. Indeed, because the price elasticity of demand for water is relatively low, the impact of water pricing on water demand can be relatively limited, even though a recent study from the European Environment Agency indicates that households facing a water price increase do react by reducing their water consumption. Nonetheless, the same study finds that water efficiency is best achieved through a combination of pricing and non-pricing instruments. Research shows that if all domestic water-using products were covered by the Ecodesign Directive, a 19.6% reduction in EU total public supply could be achieved (around 10% if only energy-related products were included, excluding dishwashers and washing machines). This would correspond to a 3.2% reduction in the EU’s total annual abstraction volume. Floods Directive The Floods Directive has also substantially changed the governance of floods compared to the situation before the Directive’s introduction: as opposed to thinking narrowly in ‘local flood protection’ terms, the D