River Basin Network on Water Framework Directive and Agriculure

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Organisation:
European Commission

This publication has the overall objective to provide practical examples or good case practices in the River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) by assessing a list of agricultural measures included in the plan and focusing on issues of particular interest for the Water Framework Directive (WFD) implementation in the agricultural sector. The River Basin Network (RBN) also lent support to the Expert Group on WFD and Agriculture in its work by offering technical and from-the-field feedback. In addition, results from network activities were disseminated to all other river basin managers, stakeholders, and to the Expert Group members. Activities were coordinated by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (Institute for Environment and Sustainability).

At the core of the mandate of the RBN were: (i) the evaluation of measures and enhancement of the catalogue of measures; (ii) the evaluation of specific issues in the RBMPs. Outputs from these tasks took the form of the following deliverables: (i) a set of short fact sheets evaluating each of the measures selected for this exercise; and (ii) a short report for each of the issues selected by the RBN network and dealt with in ad hoc working groups. The call for participation into the RBN exercise was answered by 21 river basins, representing 14 Member States. 

The measures selected by the river basins for evaluation were:

  • Buffer strips
  • Establishment and preservation of wetlands
  • Reduce water abstraction
  • Reduce fertilisation
  • Avoiding spreading fertiliser and manure at high risk times and places
  • Plant cover in winter
  • Catch crops
  • Application techniques of manure
  • Capacity of manure storage
  • Erosion-minimising cultivation system

For the compilation of the short reports related to specific issues, working groups were formed, each co-led by a river basin, with the following issues selected:

  • Indicators to monitor the implementation of the Programme of Measures (PoM)
  • Financing the agricultural measures in the PoM
  • Farmers involvement, strategies, and experiences
  • Cost-effectiveness of agricultural measures
  • Comparison of policies and implementation strategies to reduce diffuse agricultural pollution
  • Irrigation related measures
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