Conclusions and policy recommendations for the E.U. Water Framework Directive

The purpose of this final chapter is to identify the common themes of the three projects (WSM, Medis, and Aquadapt), to integrate and harmonise the results and approaches adopted by each, and to discuss conclusions and potential policy implications that can feed into the EU Water Framework Directive. The knowledge that has emerged from the three projects has been principally obtained from case study analyses. These have examined competing water use patterns, compared governance structures and how these have evolved in response to scarcity and structural and non-structural instruments to address water deficiency. The experiences and lessons learned from these studies are summarised below. First however we briefly describe the general circumstances, or pressures and driving forces, that are common to the case studies examined in the ARID cluster of projects.