case study: Scheldt

1. Name Partner

Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM)

2. General case study characteristics

2a. Geographical characteristics

International Scheldt district (37000 km²) includes fresh and brackish water (tidal) rivers Scheldt, Somme, Ijzer and salt Scheldt estuary, covering France (50%), Belgium (43%) and the Netherlands (7%). Lowland watercourse, wide valleys, medium to light slopes. Main cities Tournai, Lille, Valenciennes, Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, Vlissingen, Middelburg.

2b. Land use characteristics

Agriculture dominant land use (61%), mainly livestock and arable farming, but also highly urbanized (13%) with 12.8 million inhabitants (353 inhabitants/km²). Main industrial areas include Lille-Roubaix-Torcoing, Dunkerque, Brussels, ports of Ghent, Terneuzen, Antwerp and Vlissingen. In coastal areas tourism plays an import role. Less than 10 percent of the land is covered with forests.

3. Pressure and impact analysis

3a. Main pressure(s) and/or pollutant(s)

Main sources of pollution are households, agriculture, industry and commercial shipping.

Agriculture: Responsible for 5% of total water use; emission of nutrients (N,P) and pesticides
Households: 58% connected to sewerage treatment system; responsible for 43% of total water use
Industry: 50% connected to collective wastewater treatment; responsible for 42% of total water use

3b. Impact(s)

Status water quality improving, but not good in a majority (78%) of the surface water bodies in the international basin. WFD good chemical and ecological status objectives have not been established yet. Environmental damage categories include eutrophication and high metal content of surface water, especially zinc, cupper and lead. Bad bathing water quality in some coastal areas. Morphological alterations of certain river stretches have taken place to improve transport efficiency, reducing the expected absorption capacity of the river system of excess floodwater and nutrients.

4. Definition goods and services provided by aquatic ecosystem

Most important goods and services provided by the aquatic ecosystem include drinking water, transportation, recreation, irrigation water, cooling water and water used for other industrial processes such as food processing and paper industry.

5. Beneficiaries / stakeholders involved

Households (drinking water, recreation), industry (cooling, process water), agriculture (irrigation), shipping (transport)

6. Definition environmental and resource costs and benefits

Environmental costs are the costs of not reaching good ecological status by 2015 throughout the entire Scheldt district.

7. Main objective monetary valuation environmental and resource costs and benefits

Estimation of environmental and resource benefits of reaching good ecological status for inclusion in cost-benefit analysis of the identified WFD programme of measures to underpin possible derogation according to Article 4.

8. Economic valuation method

Stated preference methods such as contingent valuation and choice experiments to assess the use and non-use values associated with reaching good ecological status now and in the future and travel cost study to assess recreational benefits as revealed preference method.

9. Key methodological issues

Linking economic values to pressure and/or biological impact indicators
Aggregation/upscaling economic values from individual water body to basin level
Benefits transfer across sub-basins, taking into account spatial (upstream-downstream) interrelationships and possible substitution effects (e.g. recreation)
Possibility of creating a GIS based value map
Data related to potential use of functions (number of anglers, swimming in open waters) and the fact that – due to decades of bad water quality- people have lost to appreciate some of the potential functions of surface waters with high ecological qualities.

10. Available data, information sources and stakeholder involvement

Scheldt is one of the pilot river basins (PRB) to test the “WFD guidelines”
International Scheldt Article 5 report
International comparison cost-effectiveness analysis programme of measures Scheldt sub-districts
Contingent Valuation survey carried out in 4 of the 5 official Scheldt sub-districts (France, Netherlands, Flanders, Brussels)
Secretary-general International Scheldt Commission in Advisory Board & Scaldit (INTERREG III project)

Case Study Status Report Scheldt River Basin, April 2007 [pdf, 1.0 MB]