Water protection policy in Germany

The long-term goals of German water protection policy are:

• to maintain or restore good ecological and chemical quality of water bodies,
• to ensure an adequate supply of drinking and process water, both in terms of quality and quantity, and
• to secure for the long term all other water uses that serve the public interest. These include leisure and recreation, shipping and energy production.

To reach these goals, water protection policy is based on:

• the precautionary principle,
• the polluter pays principle and full coverage of costs,
• cooperation of all water users and stakeholders in water protection.

To implement these principles of water protection policy, the federal government and the Länder have developed a set of powerful legal instruments.

Legislation

The legal instruments for water protection cover the following legal areas:

1. Regulatory law

   Regulatory law stipulates that water bodies in Germany are subject to management by the state. Citizens and authorities are obliged to use the water in a responsible way. The most important act is the Federal Water Act (Wasserhaushaltsgesetz, WHG), which was first adopted in 1957. The latest amendment entered into force in June 2002. This amendment completed the transposition of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) into German national law and allowed the German Länder to adapt their respective water acts to the European provisions by the deadline at the end of 2003. The amendment created the legal basis for transboundary, sustainable water management. The goal is to reach a good status of all water bodies by 2015. This includes pollutant levels and conditions for the animal and plant species living in the water bodies. To achieve this, management plans must be elaborated by 2009. To learn more about the transposition of the WFD into German law, click here. In addition, there are several key ordinances and administrative provisions regulating the execution of the Federal Water Act. The Waste Water Ordinance plays a particularly significant role. An amendment to this ordinance entered into force on 1 January 2005. Following a long consultation process in the competent parliamentary bodies, the Flood Control Act entered into force on 10 May 2005. With this act, the federal government introduced for the first time stringent, nationally binding requirements to prevent damage from floods. The German Länder have adopted their own water acts and a range of ordinances and administrative provisions to flesh out the Federal Water Act.

2. Law on water charges

   According to the federal Waste Water Charges Act of 1976 (last amended in 2005) and supplementary provisions of the federal Länder, charges must be paid for waste water discharged into water bodies. These charges provide an economic incentive to reduce the quantity of discharged water to a minimum.
   In addition, the majority of the Länder also levy charges for groundwater abstraction, some also for abstraction from surface water bodies ("water cent"). The goal is to conserve the precious resource water.

3. Law on substances

   There are a number of regulations which protect water resources from harmful substances. These include the federal Washing and Cleansing Agents Act of 1975 (amended in 1986, latest version dating from 2007), the Chemicals Act, the Plant Protection Act and the Fertilizer Act, as well as relevant ordinances.

4. Liability and criminal law

   Anybody who pollutes a water body and causes damage to somebody else must pay compensation. This is a general rule under civil liability law. If the damage poses a threat to the environment, there are additional obligations to pay compensation under the Federal Water Act (§ 22) or under the Environmental Liability Act. Polluting a water body without authorisation may also be considered a crime according to the provisions of the Criminal Code.

Competences

According to the distribution of competences under Germany's Basic Law, the federal government can only issue the general legal framework for water protection. It is the task of the water authorities of the individual Länder to flesh out and supplement this framework and enforce the legal provisions. In most of the Länder, water management follows the typical three-level structure of administrative bodies in general:

• Supreme authority: (environment) ministry with responsibility for water management (tasks: control and general administrative procedures)
• Intermediate authority: district authorities, regional commissioners, state offices (tasks: regional water management planning, procedures under water management law that are of special significance, administrative procedures)
• Lower authority: lower water authorities in counties and non-county municipalities, technical authorities (tasks: procedures under water management law, expert advice, monitoring of water bodies and discharges).

To coordinate their water policies the Länder have established a joint working group on water issues (Länderarbeitsgemeinschaft Wasser, LAWA).

The most important water management tasks of the local authorities are central water supply and waste water management. Charges (contributions and fees) are levied to cover the costs of this.