Economic challenges for the EU Water Framework Directive reform and implementation

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) is a unique and historic piece of environmental legislation, combining ecological and economic dimensions. The aim of the WFD is to ensure sustainable socio-economic management of the resource, protecting the quantity and quality of water. The complexity of this political, ecological and economic framework has led to misinterpretation and implementation problems among Member States, and thus to unsatisfactory outcomes. This paper analyses the economic science challenges for the upcoming WFD reform and its subsequent implementation, and gives some recommendations about how to handle these challenges. Consensus is required on the definitions of the existing economic concepts and tools currently included in European Union (EU) water policy (through the original WFD) and the methods for operationalizing them. Additionally, this will help fill key gaps, such as the lack of suitably skilled practitioners and the need for homogeneous economic knowledge among Member States. Furthermore, it seems necessary to integrate additional emerging concepts into the water policy debate and its praxis in the EU context.