multifunctional land use - European Centre for River Restoration

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS ON FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT AND MULTIFUNCTIONAL LAND USE IN RIVER CATCHMENTS
plan is made for each river basin district lying entirely within their territory or in the case of an
international river basin district falling entirely within the Community, the Member States shall ensure
the co-ordination with the aim of producing a single international river basin management plan. They
are also responsible for the co-ordination of all programmes of measures in the river basin district. For
international river basin districts the Member States concerned shall together ensure this co-ordination.
The EU Water Framework Directive should be implemented by protecting, enhancing and restoring
and by preventing the deterioration of the status of all bodies of surface water and groundwater
[art. 4] and by monitoring of the surface water and groundwater status as well as protected areas
[art. 8]. The implementation of river basin management can be realized by "supplementary" measures
[art. 11, 3] with the aim of achieving the objectives established pursuant to part B of annex VI. This
contains a non-exclusive list of such measures as codes of good practice or recreation and restoration
of wetland areas.
The areas affected by the EU Water Framework Directive can be derived from the stocktaking of the
Member States. In Germany the “Länder” are responsible for this inventory. In principle the entirety of
a river basin is concerned [art. 4, 4 and art. 13], but especially those areas which are explicitly specified
in the EU Water Framework Directive:
• Terrestrial ecosystems and wetlands directly depending on the aquatic ecosystems [art. 1 a];
• Protected areas [art. 6 and annex IV]. The Member States shall ensure the establishment of a
register or registers of all areas lying within each river basin district, which have been designated as
requiring special protection under specific Community legislation for the protection of their surface
water and groundwater or for the conservation of habitats and species directly depending on water;
• Surface water bodies [art. 4] as rivers, creeks and lakes, including the surrounding plains as far as
the water morphology can be influenced.
3.1.1. Recovery of the Costs of Water Services
The Member States of the European Union shall take account of the principle of cost recovery of the
water services, including environmental and resource costs, having regard to a economic analysis in
accordance with the polluter pays principle [art. 9]. So they shall ensure by 2010, that water-pricing
policies provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently, and thereby contribute
to the environmental objectives of the EU Water Framework Directive. The Member States may in so
doing have regard to the social, environmental and economic effects of the recovery as well as the
geographic and climatic conditions of the region or regions affected.
The Structural Funds, in particular the European Regional Development Fund, and the Cohesion Fund
can also fund preventive infrastructure investments for flood protection, that will mean precautionary
land use measures. The European Regional Development Fund can contribute to financing infrastructure
related research and technological development too.
Land use measures, which contribute to the EU Water Framework Directive to a high degree (water
management), can exceed the objectives of a land use according to the rules and can even exceed the
normal ownership liabilities.
Within the INTERREG IIIB WaReLa project we defined for example forest land use measures, which
support the objectives of flood prevention (table 2). The efficiency of these forest measures depend
on the particular site conditions (Schüler 2005c). With a high degree of efficiency following different
economical and environmental objectives they fulfil the 5th criteria of a sustainable forest management
“maintenance and appropriate enhancement of protective functions in forest management, notably
soil and water”, as it was defined 1998 by the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in
Europe (MCPFE) in Lisbon (Wolff 2001). So they must be recognized as measures of good practice in
forestry. If land use measures in forestry aim mainly at mitigating the effects of floods, they should be
defined as water services.
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