Ecological flows in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive : Guidance document No 31

Building on an assessment of progress in Water Framework Directive (WFD) implementation in its 1st cycle, the Blueprint to safeguard Europe's water resources stressed the urgent need to better address over-abstraction of water, the second most common pressure on EU ecological status, and to recognize that water quality and quantity are intimately related within the concept of 'good status '. This would require an EU-wide acknowledgement of the ecological flows, i.e. the "amount of water required for the aquatic ecosystem to continue to thrive and provide the services we rely upon". To achieve this, the Blueprint proposed the development of a guidance document in the framework of the WFD common implementation strategy (CIS) that would provide an EU definition of ecological flows and a common understanding of how it should be calculated, so that ecological flows may be applied in the next cycle of river basin management plans (RBMPs) due for adoption by the end of 2015.