This webinar will present a review of the economic provisions of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by an informal group of independent European water economists, who in 2000 worked together to develop the Wateco Guidance for the economic analysis for the WFD. It documents their 25 years practical experience with WFD implementation.  

Jonathan will first provide the historical context to the WFD from water policies in the 1980s. He will then set out the economic provisions of the WFD, which was the first EU Directive to incorporate economic analysis and instruments.This will be followed by an overview of a SWOT analysis of the implementation of the WFD’s economic provision that provides the basis for recommending specific refinements of the WFD, which can hopefully support water policy reforms. For the EU this could inform the EC Water Resilience Strategy and for England and Wales can support the findings and recommendations of the Cunliffe Independent Water Commission. 

Our speaker

Jonathan Fisher is an environmental economist with 50 years’ experience of delivering economic analyses of most environmental issues. He was the Department of Environment’s economic adviser on climate change for the UK’s first climate change action plan and the establishment of the IPCC. He worked at the OECD’s Environment Directorate and also at HM Treasury. For the last 25 years he has focused on water. He participated in the Group of European water economists who prepared the Wateco Guidance for implementation of the WFD. He was the Environment Agency’s economics manager responsible for water and flood risk management. Since retiring from the EA in 2014, he has worked as a freelance environmental economics consultant on water studies in Armenia and Turkey and Romania’s flood risk management plan and now the economic impacts of sea level rise and storm surge in St Lucia. He has recently submitted to recent consultations on water – including the call for evidence by the Cunliffe Commission on water and Defra’s consultations on flood risk management funding and land use allocation. Jonathan has a BSc in economics and accountancy from Bristol University and a PhD in environmental economics from Leicester University.   

Header image credit: @ Dene' Miles from Adobe Stock