What is the Water Framework Directive?

The Water Framework Directive (WFD, or the Directive) came into force on 22 December 2000 and establishes a new legal framework for the protection, improvement and sustainable use of all water bodies in the environment across Europe. That is, all rivers, canals, lochs, estuaries, wetlands and coastal waters as well as water under the ground.

The main environmental objectives are to protect and improve the UK water environment. This will include preventing deterioration of aquatic ecosystems and, where possible, restoring surface waters and groundwater damaged by pollution, water abstraction and dams and engineering activities to ‘good status’ by 2015.