River Development Planning

Project description and aims

Many rivers, lakes and streams in the EU are far away from the good water status that they should have reached by December 2015 or should reach at the latest by 2027, according to the EU Water Framework Directive. In Germany, for instance, only 10 % of rivers and streams have a good ecological and chemical status, due to pollution by wastewater, agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, heavy canalization, obstruction by hydro dam barriers, as well as urban sprawl and ground sealing in the catchment areas. In order to reduce and reverse these impacts on water status, it is necessary to assess them in an integrated way and carefully prioritise the necessary measures.

A river development plan is the suitable instrument to organize knowledge-based binding and voluntary measures for the improvement of the situation. It is, however, rarely used in practice, as agencies fear additional cost and effort.

The project should collect information about best practices and provide guidance how to draft and implement river development plans in a cost-effective way, so that regulators in the Member States are encouraged to use this instrument for the remediation of surface waters in their jurisdiction.

The project aims to build on the experience of other water-related IMPEL projects (e.g. SWETE, ReDuPiWa, Good practice for tackling nitrate pollution) for sharing best practices to implement the Water Framework Directive.

Expected outcomes

• Field visits with information documents for participants
• Guidance document (Guideline on River Development Planning)
• Final project report.