AQUAMONEY - "Development and Testing of Practical Guidelines for the Assessment of Environmental and Resource Costs and Benefits in the WFD"

ProgettoThe main objective of this proposal is to develop practical guidelines for the economic valuation of environmental and resource costs and benefits related to water use and water services to be included in the economic analysis in the WFD. More specifically, a protocol for good practice will be developed, which allow the use of economic values related to environmental and resource costs in different water policy contexts at different scales (water body, national and international river basin), usually referred to as benefits transfer (e.g. Navrud, 1992; Barton, 2002; Brouwer, 2000; Bateman et al., 2000; Ready et al., 2004). Special attention will be paid to evaluating the potential for applying Geographical Information Systems (GIS) within benefits transfer. The main objective of relating the methodology development work directly to the policy processes in the WFD is to obtain policy support and authorisation for the use of different economic values for environmental and resource costs in the economic analysis of the WFD and their direct use in the River Basin Management Plans. At the same time, involving policy and decision-makers and stakeholders in a participatory way in the economic valuation process of the environmental and resource costs related to water is also believed to play an important informative and awareness raising role, i.e. resulting in an important social and institutional learning process.