Posted on November, 13 2003
Executive Summary
WWF's Water and Wetland Index is a two-phase pan-European initiative aimed at stimulating debate on how to preserve and improve the state of freshwater ecosystems across Europe through sustainable and integrated management of water.
The first phase (WWI-1) was carried out in 2000 and assessed how effectively16 EU Member States and Accession Countries monitored the state of their water and how far they were from the “good ecological status” objective to be delivered by 2015, according to the EU Water Framework Directive.
At the end of 2002, WWF began the second phase of the Index (WWI, reported here), which assessed policy and legislative responses by Governments and water authorities to the impacts and pressures on freshwater ecosystems.
WWI was carried out in 22 EU Member States, EU Accession Countries and non-EU countries: Austria, Belgium (Flanders, Wallonia), Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey and United Kingdom (England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland). The results reported here refer to 22 countries (23 regions).
The study was carried out using questionnaires, which systematically assessed some significant aspects of water policy at a national level and at the river basin district level.
Three aspects of water policy and legislation have been evaluated:
- The application of integrated river basin management (IRBM) principles
- The application of measures tackling the most urgent freshwater problems in each country (water quantity problems, water quality problems and river fragmentation).
- For EU Member States and Accession Countries, progress towards the transposition and implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD).
The survey was carried out by WWF National Offices, partner NGOs and independent consultants. Numerous sectors were consulted during the completion of the questionnaires. These included water companies, NGO stakeholders, governments and their executive agencies and research institutes.
