Ecosystem services for water policy: insights across Europe

In this research we explored how the concepts and approaches of ecosystem services are currently used in water management in Europe, in the application of River Basin Management Plans (RBMP) developed for the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). Five case studies have been considered, located in the River Basin Districts of the Po river (Italy), Scotland (United Kingdom), Scheldt river (Belgium), Danube river (Romania), Sado and Mira rivers and Ribeiras do Algarve (Portugal). These cases represent different regional contexts of application of the EU water policy, with specific socio-economic drivers and environmental issues. Each case study has developed an operational framework to analyse ecosystem services in practice together with a group of local stakeholders. This paper tests the integration of ecosystem service results and concepts into water management practices. In each regional case, we examined how EU water policy and RBMPs are implemented, considering legal and planning instruments from the national to the local scale, and we analysed the use of ecosystem service terms and concepts in the relevant planning instruments. In parallel, we explored the view of local stakeholders and water managers on the topic, collecting their opinion on three major aspects: the usefulness of the concepts and approaches of ecosystem services for the river basin management plan, the risks and benefits of their use, and the knowledge needs to put the concepts into practice. We analysed the opinion of stakeholders across the five regional cases to extract key messages and formulate some recommendations. The results of this study provide a picture across Europe of the current use of the concepts of ecosystem services in the RBMP and relevant insight on the opinion of local stakeholders and water managers.

GRIZZETTI Bruna;  LIQUETE GARCIA Maria Del Camino;  ANTUNES Paula;  CARVALHO Laurence;  GEAMĂNĂ Nicoleta;  GIUCĂ Relu;  LEONE Michael;  MCCONNELL Shona;  PREDA Elena;  SANTOS Rui;  TURKELBOOM Francis;  VĂDINEANU Angheluță;  WOODS Helen; 

2016-10-05

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

JRC101356

1462-9011,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S146290111630613X,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC101356,   

10.1016/j.envsci.2016.09.006,