IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enscpo/v59y2016icp10-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Disproportionate costs in the EU Water Framework Directive—How to justify less stringent environmental objectives

Author

Listed:
  • Klauer, Bernd
  • Sigel, Katja
  • Schiller, Johannes

Abstract

The ambitious objective pursued by the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) is good status for all European waters. However, “less stringent environmental objectives” are permissible if the costs of achieving good status are disproportionately high. This exemption, if abused, carries the risk of watering down the ambitions of the Directive. Currently, no transparent, well-established, universally applicable method for routinely testing disproportionality exists throughout Europe. In this paper, such a method is developed for surface water bodies. The core idea is to determine a water body-specific disproportionality threshold which is then compared to the projected costs of achieving “good status/potential”. For the sake of practicability, the benchmark for disproportionality is estimated on the basis of prior expenditure on water quality enhancement. The paper argues that the proposed method combines both possible interpretations of (dis-)proportionality—affordability and cost-benefit considerations. Due to the method’s moderate data requirements it can be used readily in most German federal states and is transferable in principle to other EU Member States. The method was tested empirically for a river in the German federal state of Rhineland–Palatinate.

Suggested Citation

  • Klauer, Bernd & Sigel, Katja & Schiller, Johannes, 2016. "Disproportionate costs in the EU Water Framework Directive—How to justify less stringent environmental objectives," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 10-17.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:enscpo:v:59:y:2016:i:c:p:10-17
    DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2016.01.017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S146290111630017X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.envsci.2016.01.017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kristina Ek & Lars Persson, 2020. "Priorities and Preferences in Water Quality Management - a Case Study of the Alsterån River Basin," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 34(1), pages 155-173, January.
    2. Eva Sievers & Christoph Zielhofer & Frank Hüesker, 2021. "Management of Global Warming Effects in the European Water Framework Directive: Consideration of Social–Ecological System Features in the Elbe River Basin District," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-20, August.
    3. Silvia Novelli & Francesca Moino & Patrizia Borsotto, 2022. "External Benefits of Irrigation in Mountain Areas: Stakeholder Perceptions and Water Policy Implications," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-14, August.
    4. Anzaldua, Gerardo & Gerner, Nadine V. & Lago, Manuel & Abhold, Katrina & Hinzmann, Mandy & Beyer, Sarah & Winking, Caroline & Riegels, Niels & Krogsgaard Jensen, Jørgen & Termes, Montserrat & Amorós, , 2018. "Getting into the water with the Ecosystem Services Approach: The DESSIN ESS evaluation framework," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 30(PB), pages 318-326.
    5. Tobias Holmsgaard Larsen & Thomas Lundhede & Søren Bøye Olsen & Brian H. Jacobsen, 2021. "Incorporating time lags and uncertainty in cost-benefit analysis of water quality improvements – a case study of Limfjorden, Denmark," IFRO Working Paper 2021/01, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    6. Jan Macháč & Jan Brabec, 2018. "Assessment of Disproportionate Costs According to the WFD: Comparison of Applications of two Approaches in the Catchment of the Stanovice Reservoir (Czech Republic)," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 32(4), pages 1453-1466, March.
    7. Carolus, Johannes Friedrich & Hanley, Nick & Olsen, Søren Bøye & Pedersen, Søren Marcus, 2018. "A Bottom-up Approach to Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 282-295.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enscpo:v:59:y:2016:i:c:p:10-17. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/environmental-science-and-policy/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.