EU Water Framework Directive
The EU Water Framework Directive (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/index_en.html) is a major piece of EU environmental legislation which aims at improving our water environment. It requires governments to take a new holistic approach to managing their waters. It applies to rivers, lakes, groundwater, estuaries and coastal waters. Member States must aim to achieve good status in all waters by 2015 and must ensure that status does not deteriorate in any waters. The EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC was transposed into Irish law through the European Communities (Water Policy) Regulations, 2003 (S.I. No. 722), as amended
For the purposes of implementation of the WFD the island of Ireland has been divided up into eight River Basin Districts and South Tipperary County Council has boundaries within three of these ‘Districts’ as follows.
Shannon International River Basin District (www.shannonrbd.com)
South East River Basin District (www.serbd.com)
South West River Basin District (www.swrbd.ie)
Each of the RBD’s has prepared a draft River Basin Management Plan as required by the Directive. The draft River Basin Management Plans outline the current status of our waters, the proposed environmental objectives for our waters, and the measures which may be necessary in order to achieve these objectives. Public involvement has been an integral part of the planning process at all stages to date and you are encouraged to examine the draft RBMP and any comments that you may have in relation to the draft plans would be welcomme.
Copies of the draft plans and details on how to respond to the public consultation are available by on the above websites while waterbody status, objectives and measures can be viewed for each waterbody via webgis at http://watermaps.wfdireland.ie/
