The Water Framework Directive: recent approaches in England and Wales and suggestions for recognising environmental and resource costs in Italy

Titolo Rivista ECONOMIA E DIRITTO DEL TERZIARIO
Autori/Curatori Sarah Shababi
Anno di pubblicazione 2015 Fascicolo 2014/3
Lingua Italiano Numero pagine 21 P. 367-387 Dimensione file 150 KB
DOI 10.3280/ED2014-003004
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più clicca qui

Qui sotto puoi vedere in anteprima la prima pagina di questo articolo.

Se questo articolo ti interessa, lo puoi acquistare (e scaricare in formato pdf) seguendo le facili indicazioni per acquistare il download credit. Acquista Download Credits per scaricare questo Articolo in formato PDF

Anteprima articolo

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA)associazione indipendente e non profit per facilitare (attraverso i servizi tecnologici implementati da CrossRef.org) l’accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche

The principles of full cost recovery and polluters pay contained in the Water Framework Directive (WFD 2000/60) were approved well over a decade ago. Recently there has been greater debate in transferring these principles to national policies in EU member states following the economic recession, the difficulties in financing water and wastewater infrastructure through public finances and the impacts on the environment of the growing population. With the approval of the new water tariff (Metodo Tariffario Idrico), the Italian Regulatory Body for Electricity, Gas and Water (AEEGSI) is attempting to translate the WFD principles into a water pricing scheme that recognises environmental and resource costs as components of the tariff structure. The recognition of these costs in the tariff structure is an important step but there are evident difficulties in determining how these costs can be calculated and transferred to tariffs without compromising the ability of users to pay. In the first part of the paper, different options for calculating these costs have been analysed, from the unit cost of pollutant per quantity of pollutant removed and the unit cost of water abstraction, to cost-benefit analysis combined with environmental value transfer strategies. The recent stance taken by the governing bodies in the United Kingdom has reestablished environmental priorities in both consumption and management of the resource. It has been at the root of the changes that Ofwat has undertaken to improve upstream catchment management and introduce an outcome based approach in ensuring the best value to consumers and society as a whole. The final part of the paper examines proposals on how environmental and resource costs can be transferred to water tariffs: for resource costs, a two-tier tariff approach is proposed with the fixed part of the tariff ensuring adequate coverage of the marginal opportunity costs associated with use and the variable part providing the incentive to consumers to use less of the resource. This is because resource costs are recognised as a consequence of scarcity and of the opportunity cost associated with the resource but they are not necessarily incurred by the water and wastewater companies. Environmental costs to remove and/or prevent environmental damage are generally incurred by the companies and these could therefore be charged to users ex ante or ex post to cover the costs of the removal/prevention activity undertaken, whether operating or capital in nature.;

Keywords:Water framework directive, costi ambientali, costi della risorsa.

Jel codes:L 95G3.

  1. Autorità per l’energia elettrica, il gas e il servizio idrico, document 339/2013/R/IDR.
  2. Boyle, K.J., Kuminoff, N.V., Parmeter, C. and Pope, J.C., The Benefit-Transfer Challenges, in «The Annual Review of Resource Economics», 2, 2010, pp. 161-82, Arizona State University.
  3. Commission Recommendation of 30 May 2001 on the recognition, measurement and disclosure of environmental issues in the annual accounts and annual reports of companies C(2001), 1495.
  4. Defra, Impact pathway guidance for valuing changes in air quality, 2013.
  5. Defra, Environment Agency, Natural England and Forestry Commission, Improving the use of environmental valuation in policy appraisal: A Value Transfer Strategy, 2010.
  6. Egger, M., Smith, G.D., Phillips, A.N. Meta-analysis: Principles and procedures BMJ, 315, 1533, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.315.7121.1533,1997.EuropeanCommissionPressreleaseBrussels,21June2012Environment:ItalyinCourtoverurbanwastewatertreatmentfailings
  7. Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee, House of Commons, The Water White Paper, 2011.
  8. EXIOPOL is an integrated project funded by the European Commission under the 6th framework programme, priority 6.3 Global Change and Ecosystems.
  9. Glickman, M.E. and van Dyk D.A., Basic Bayesian Methods, Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 404: Topics in Biostatistics Edited by W.T. Ambrosius © Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ.
  10. Hanley, N., Spash, C., Cost benefit analysis and the environment, England, Edward Elgar Publishing, 1995.
  11. Hervé, J., Molina, V., Embellie dans la fréquentation touristique en 2013, Insee Institut National de la Statistique et des etudes economiques, 2013.
  12. Howarth, W., Cost Recovery for Water Services and the Polluter Pays Principle, ERA Forum, December, Volume 10 Issue 4, 2009, pp. 565-587.
  13. Hutubessy, R., Chisholm, D., Tan-Torres Edejer T. and WHO-CHOICE, Generalized cost-effectiveness analysis for national-level priority-setting in the health sector, Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, 1, 8, DOI: 10.1186/1478-7547-1-8,2003
  14. Ispra, Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale and Arpa, Emila Romagna, 2011.
  15. Loomis, J.B., The evolution of a more rigorous approach to benefit transfer: Benefit function transfer, «Water Resour. Res.», 28(3) 1992, pp. 701–705, DOI: 10.1029/91WR02596
  16. Maestu, J., Andreu Alvarez, J., Gomez, C.M., Practical experience in Spain, in Bouwer, R., Strosser, P. (Eds), Environmental and Resource Costs and the Water Framework Directive. An overview of European practices, Amsterdam, RIZA Working Paper, 2004.
  17. Massarutto, A., Basoni, A., de Carli, A., Lodi, A., Studio di fattibilità concernente lo sviluppo dell’analisi economica dell’utilizzo idrico a scala di bacino del fiume Po così come prevista dalla Direttiva 2000/60/CE, 2005.
  18. O’Brien, Bernie J. PhD, Drummond, Michael, F., PhD, Labelle, Roberta, J. PhD, William, Andrew, PhD, In Search of Power and Significance: Issues in the Design and Analysis of Stochastic Cost-Effectiveness Studies in Health Care, «Medical Care», vol. 32, n. 2 (Feb., 1994), pp. 150-163, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, DOI: 10.1097/00005650-199402000-00006
  19. Ofwat, Setting price controls in 2014, a briefing note for environmental stakeholders, 2013.
  20. Ofwat, Setting price limits for 2010-15, Framework and approach, 2008.
  21. Raggi, M., Ronchi, D., Sardonini, L., Viaggi, D., Po Basin Case study status report, Aquamoney, 2006.
  22. Ramsey, S., Willke, R., Briggs, A., Brown, R., Buxton, M., Chawla, A., Cook, J., Glick, H., Liljas, B., Petitti, D., Reed, S., Good Research Practices for Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Alongside Clinical Trials: The ISPOR RCT-CEA, Task Force Report in Value in Health, volume 8, 2005.
  23. Reichert, P., Schervish, M., Small, M.J., An Efficient Sampling Technique for Bayesian Inference with Computationally Demanding Models, in «Technometrics», vol. 44, n. 4, Nov., Published by American Statistical Association and American Society for Quality, 2002.
  24. Rogers, P., de Silvab, R., Bhatiac, R., Water is an economic good: How to use prices to promote equity, efficiency, and sustainability, in «Water Policy», 4, 2002, pp. 1-17, DOI: 10.1016/S1366-7017(02)00004-1.Russi,D.,tenBrink,P.,Farmer,A.,Badura,T.(InstituteforEuropeanEnvironmentalPolicy-IEEP),CoatesD.(CBDSecretariat),Förster,J.(UFZ),Kumar,R.(WI)andDavidson,N.(RamsarSecretariat),TheEconomicsofEcosystemsandBiodiversityforwaterandwetlands,2013
  25. Wateco guidance “Economics and the Environment: The Implementation Challenge of the Water Framework Directive”.
  26. WATECO (2000/60/EC), Common Implementation Strategy for the Water Framework Directive Policy Summary Guidance Document No 1 Economics and the Environment – The implementation challenge of the Water Framework Directive Produced by Working Group 2.6.
  27. Water Framework Directive – Economic Analysis of Water Industry Costs Final Report of November 2005.

Sarah Shababi, The Water Framework Directive: recent approaches in England and Wales and suggestions for recognising environmental and resource costs in Italy in "ECONOMIA E DIRITTO DEL TERZIARIO " 3/2014, pp 367-387, DOI: 10.3280/ED2014-003004