How will the management of the water environment change?

The Directive relates not only to the standards of water protection but also to how water is managed.

The introduction of a transparent and participative river basin management planning (RBMP) system will provide a framework within which targets, actions, priorities, costs and benefits of environmental change are all taken into account. This will allow environmental needs to be balanced with social and economic needs.

The first step in RBMP is to characterise the River Basin Districts. This was completed in 2004 and the reports – Pressures & Impacts and Economic Analysis – can be found on the different web-sites: http://www.wfduk.org/links/