UBA Water protection

The project aims to optimize national reporting in water protection in order to align it with the requirements of EU directives and regulations.

The federal authorities are always dependent on data from the federal authorities and federal states for the compilation of national datasets on water properties and quality and the national evaluations based on them for the fulfillment of their reporting obligations to the European Union. However, a large part of the reporting procedures have grown historically, are heterogeneous in terms of content, technology and processes and have not yet been sufficiently aligned with all the requirements of the EU guidelines.

As part of the project, the reporting processes relevant to water protection between federal and state authorities, but also between the responsible federal authorities, will be examined for their efficiency and timeliness and professional, technical and legal recommendations will be developed to improve the existing reporting structures for the efficient fulfillment of European and national obligations in water protection.

The Independent Institute for Environmental Issues supports the project with regard to all legal issues, examines in particular the implementation of new legal requirements for the reporting system and makes recommendations for updating the existing procedural principles for data exchange in water protection between the federal and state governments.

The project is funded by the Federal Environment Agency as part of the 2017 departmental research plan of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.