Scottish Government

Water Framework Directive (WFD)

WFD - What is it?

On October 23 2000, the "Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for the Community action in the field of water policy" was adopted. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) applies to all water in the natural environment - that is all rivers, lochs, estuaries and coastal waters as well as groundwater. It came into force on December 22 2000.

The Water Framework Directive has two key components:

• it requires us to manage our water environment on the basis of units that make sense in environmental terms - River Basin Districts that include all interdependent rivers, lochs, estuaries, coastal waters and associated underground waters. A plan will have to be drawn up for each River Basin District setting out where there are environmental pressures and what will be done to tackle them. The first River Basin Management Plan is due in 2009;
• it also requires that, for the first time, we control and monitor all impacts - physical, polluting and otherwise - on the water environment with the aim of achieving 'good' ecological status for most rivers etc by specified deadlines - 2015 in most cases. Status is determined not just by the chemical composition of waters but by ecology, that is the fish, plant and other life that inhabit it.

The basic objectives to be achieved as set out in Article 4(1) can be summarised as follows:

• prevent deterioration in the status of surface water bodies
• protect, enhance and restore all bodies of surface water with the aim of achieving good surface water status by 2015
• prevent deterioration of the status of groundwater bodies
• protect, enhance and restore all bodies of groundwater with the aim of achieving good groundwater status by 2015
• prevent or limit the input of pollutants to groundwater and reverse any significant and sustained upward trend in the concentration of pollutants in groundwater
• comply with European wide measures against priority and priority hazardous substances
• achieve compliance with any relevant standards and objectives for protected areas

The Directive repeals and replaces a number of older EC water Directives and incorporates the remaining existing water Directives (the Bathing Water, Nitrates and Urban Waste Water Treatment Directives) into its framework through its protected areas provisions. The "Natura" Directives on the protection of Habitats and Birds are also linked to this Directive through the protected area provisions.

The Directive requires Member States to put in place systems for managing their water environments, based on natural river basin districts and underpinned by extensive environmental monitoring and scientific investigation, called "river basin management". It further requires Member States to take account of the need to recover the costs of water services as a way of encouraging the sustainable use of water resources.

Timetable for Implementation of the Directive

The Water Framework Directive was required to be transposed into Scots Law by 22 December 2003, three years after the Directive itself came into force. The timetable below shows the key steps in this process.