Vorschlag für eine Methodik zur Auswahl der kosteneffizientesten Massnahmenkombinationen für die Wasserrahmenrichtlinie

According to the EC-Water Framework Directive, all river basins in Europe need to attain a,good ecological status' by 2015. To this purpose programs of measures are to be developed for each river basin until 2009. The selection and combination of measures in the context of these programs is to be based on cost-effectiveness criteria. While cost considerations are common practice in the water sector, the WFD establishes a new approach as regards the selection and combination of measures, as it requires that not only the individual measures but rather their combinations need to be assessed with respect to their cost-effectiveness. Also, the effectiveness of these measures is not assessed based on single parameters such as N and P, but on an entire suite of parameters defining the ,good ecological status' of a water body, including its morphological as well as ecological quality. Finally,cost-effectiveness of measures is not only to be reached locally but rather on the scale of the entire river basin. For selecting and planning concrete measures, Ecologic and the Institute of Aquatic Resources Research and Management at Kassel University on initiative of the German Federal Environment Agency developed a handbook suggesting a detailed methodology in seven steps. This approach is the first in Europe towards ensuring more transparency in the process of selecting cost-effective measures in the context of WFD-implementation.