Report on Denmark’s River Basin Management Plans

19-03-2014

Report no. 13/2013

The report is about the Ministry of the Environment’s planning and elaboration of the Danish river basin management plans (RBMPs). Together the RBMPs constitute one overall plan for improving the Danish water environment and thereby improve the quality of coastal waters, lakes, watercourses, fjords and groundwater in Denmark. The government and the local authorities share the responsibility for implementing the measures under the RBMPs. The RBMPs are the main instrument for implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive from 2000, according to which all EU Member States are required to achieve good status for all water bodies by 2015.

The purpose of this report is to assess whether the Ministry of the Environment has prepared the RBMPs in a satisfactory manner. The report answers the following questions:

  • Has the Ministry of the Environment planned and managed the elaboration of the 1st generation RBMPs in a manner that ensured the transparency of the plans and their timely delivery?
  • Has the Ministry of the Environment based its preparation of the 2nd generation RBMPs on lessons learnt from preparing the 1st cycle of RBMPs? 

Rigsrevisionen initiated the study in December 2012.

Read the 1st chapter of the report (PDF)