Developing green interventions for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive through systems-based economic approaches

Abstract

Across the globe, society faces significant environmental challenges. Deforestation, intensive agriculture, pollution, and overexploitation of natural resources among other pressures create the conditions for natural capital depletion, ultimately jeopardizing economic development. To reverse such trends in the water sector and avoid the collapse of inland water ecosystems, the European Commission introduced the Water Framework Directive. A distinct example of integrated water resources management, the Directive aims to provide a holistic approach of managing inland waters efficiently by substituting previous fragmented legislation that focused on managing different aspects of water resources. Still, despite progress in the Directive’s implementation, approximately half of the EU’s surface waters are not in good condition. Analysing the efforts of Member States to assess the socio-economic dimensions of water ecosystems and develop programmes of measures to achieve the objectives of the Directive, indicates a lack of understanding of what and how should be assessed. The information included in the River Basin Management Plans denotes insufficient connections between pressures and interventions, as well as poor economic analysis that often disregards a great portion of benefits and costs associated with transitioning towards a desired state. To support the implementation of the Directive and to provide a systems thinking perspective on environmental management decisions, the presented work blends ecosystem services with economic methodologies, develops integrated tools and approaches and tests their applicability in real cases. Findings show that such tools improve the robustness of the socioeconomic assessments of proposed measures and have the potential to engage stakeholders in the process. Additionally, they enable the use of natural capital accounting methodologies to improve the understanding of the connection between management interventions and the overall system status. Furthermore, the included research assesses the effectiveness of nature-based approaches as interventions on the system to influence the interactions of components within socioecological systems and drive them towards the desired state. Additionally, given the way economic dimensions permeate decision-making processes and current debates on environmental management, the current thesis proposes an alternative vision for the sustainable use of natural resources. Overall, the undertaken research demonstrates the need for using economic tools through a systems prism for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and environmental policies in general to deliver socioecological improvements.