The Water Framework Directive: A Challenge for French Territorial Management

Abstract

The 2000 Water Framework Directive (WFD) creates a legal framework for the protection and restoration of clean waters across the European Union (EU) and sets ambitious objectives for all EU member states to achieve good water status by 2015. Putting the WFD into practice, however, raises a number of questions about the organizational and territorial processes governing the management of water in Europe, particularly in France. The territorialization process oscillates between the need to take into account local specificities and the requirement to respect a national and European framework. Attempts to find a balance between these two poles may result in the emergence of management principles that run counter to the kind of global, integrated management approach that the WFD is supposed to introduce. Although the ambitious objectives concerning the “good status” of water are defined at a European level, they are almost exclusively implemented by local authorities at the local level. Local authorities receive political support but are, financially speaking, highly fragmented and extremely vulnerable due to the obligatory costs associated with their areas of competence. Ultimately, the implementation of this environmental policy propels the local and regional actors and scales onto the field of water governance.