Coordination of water policies for quality and quantity: experiences from Nordic and Baltic countries

Abstract

The European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive is of paramount importance for water management. According to the legal text, coordination with other directives like the Floods Directive is imperative and motivated by potential synergy effects. In this paper, the degree to which such coordination is achieved is evaluated for five Nordic and Baltic countries. The evaluation is based on legal documents, management plans, as well as on organizational structure in the five countries. The results show that the coordination between the Water Framework Directive and the Floods Directive (or flood management for Norway's case), have been successful for Estonia and Lithuania, whereas Norway, Finland, and especially Sweden need to improve more. HIGHLIGHTS In this paper, the coordination of work with two EU directives in Nordic and Baltic countries is studied.; The potential for synergy effects is reached with varying success in the studied countries.; National legislation and organization of work affect the rate of success with coordination.; Our results confirm conclusions made by the European Commission.;

Keywords

• baltic countries
• coordination
• floods directive
• governance
• legislation
• management
• nordic countries
• water framework directive