In 2010, the European Parliament announced that it would make €1.5 million available for a “top-down” assessment of the RBMPs to carry out an in-depth analysis of certain identified subjects including governance, development of methodologies, integration of measures in the WFD programme, as well as economic aspects and integration. The outcome of this assessment supported the 2012 Blueprint to Safeguard Europe’s Waters. The Study Contract included the following objectives:
- To gather, in a structured way, information on various elements related to river basin management.
- To analyse and compare the collected information in order to draw conclusions at the European level.
FT covered the following tasks:
- Assessment of international River Basin coordination mechanisms in place, their effectiveness, the coherence between national and international RBMPs as well as the additional value of international RBMPs (lead);
- Support for the assessment of national administration mechanisms in place to implement the WFD;
- Support in the further development and updating of the existing Catalogue of Measures for Agriculture. The sub-task fed into the impact assessment for the Blueprint by providing more detailed information on the measures implemented in the RBMPs and analysing the effectiveness of selected measures. The task was linked to the screening of river basin management plans (RBMPs). Finally, the sub-task supported the mandate of the River Basin Network (RBN) until the end of March 2012.