135574 20260217205535.0 doi 10.1142/S2382624X24300019 sideral 138690 ART-2024-138690 eng Albiac, José Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-9074-2942 Review paper: a quarter of a century of the European Water Framework Directive — the slow path towards sustainable water management 2024 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) is one of the most analyzed environmental legislations in the scientific literature, influencing the water management in some non-European countries. The WFD has the strong ambition of achieving a good ecological status of water bodies across all river basins in Europe. However, the advances towards sustainable management are falling far behind the planned schedule. The emphasis of the Directive is focused on water quality rather than on water quantity. The advances during the last quarter of the century since its inception have been strong on urban and industrial point pollution, but not on agricultural non-point pollution that remains high and even increases in major basins. Water quantity aspects have been mostly left aside in the Directive, despite the fact that water scarcity is a serious problem in Southern European countries, and will become more critical with climate change in most basins across Europe. Some policy measures of the WFD need to be reformed, in particular measures for abating agricultural pollution, and new measures for addressing water scarcity. The narrow focus of the WFD on water pricing to solve at the same time issues of financing, water allocation and efficiency, environment, opportunity costs and pollution abatement, should be broadened. The challenge is giving more emphasis to command & control and collective action instruments, and designing combinations of instruments adapted to sectoral and spatial locations in basins. This overhaul of the water policy instruments by the European Commission will be needed to advance in the sustainable management of river basins in Europe. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2020-115495RA-I00 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess All rights reserved http://www.europeana.eu/rights/rr-f/ 1.3 2024 ECONOMICS 332 / 620 = 0.535 2024 Q3 T2 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 155 / 193 = 0.803 2024 Q4 T3 WATER RESOURCES 106 / 132 = 0.803 2024 Q4 T3 0.355 2024 Business and International Management 2024 Q3 Water Science and Technology 2024 Q3 Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law 2024 Q3 Economics and Econometrics 2024 Q3 1.9 2024 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion Calvo, Elena Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-7793-7892 Esteban, Encarna Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-4485-3158 4000 415 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Análisis Económico Área Fund. Análisis Económico 10, 2 (2024), [27 pp.] Water Economics and Policy 2382-624X 1071447 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/135574/files/texto_completo.pdf Postprint 1574720 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/135574/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Postprint oai:zaguan.unizar.es:135574 articulos driver 2026-02-17-20:34:05 ARTICLE