Over a three-year period from April 2006 to March 2009, the AquaMoney consortium will  
  
assess policy maker demand for information on ERCB, related to the implementation of the WFD;   
develop practice-oriented guidelines on how to assess ERCB in a quick and reliable way, with particular focus on the transfer of values between different 
sites;   
test these guidelines by carrying out economic valuation case studies in 10 different European river basins;   
analyse the experiences made and provide recommendations for decision makers.   
The experiences gained in the case studies will thus be used to refine the guidelines. The common design of the case studies will also permit investigation 
of techniques for transferring economic values of environmental and resource costs and benefits from water body level to national and international river 
basin level and vice versa. Part of this exercise will be to investigate the potential for using geographical information systems (GIS) to synthesise data 
from the case studies with available physical environment and census data so as to generate maps of expected benefits of improved water quality due to WFD implementation. 
            

The project started on the 1st of April 2006. During the first project year,   
the project group worked specifically on:  
  
(i) the definition of environmental and resource costs and benefits;  
  
(ii) their role in the WFD and policy maker demand for more guidance on   
their definition and assessment;  
  
(iii) the draft technical guidelines to assess environmental and resource   
costs and benefits;  
  
(iv) the available economic value estimates in the existing international   
water valuation literature.  
  
The most important achievements and outputs in the first year are   
correspondingly:  
  
(a) a definition note about environmental and resource costs and benefits   
and their role in the WFD;  
  
(b) draft technical guidelines;  
  
(c) an inventory of the current role of environmental and resource costs and   
benefits across the EU Member States and policy and stakeholder   
demand for more guidance on their assessment.  
  
These achievements and outputs were presented and discussed with the   
international project Advisory Committee during the second plenary project   
meeting in Berlin at the end of the first project year.  
  
The questionnaire survey was carried out to identify WFD policy and   
decision-maker and stakeholder demand for more guidance on the   
assessment of environmental and resource costs and benefits and the   
specific content of the AquaMoney guidelines. The survey was completed   
by 40 different European policymakers and stakeholders in more than 15   
European Member States. The survey results show a clear interest in the   
AquaMoney project and its deliverables. The expectations regarding the   
AquaMoney guidelines are that they provide practical, hands-on guidance,   
illustrated by practical case study examples, for the use of - where   
possible - existing and transferable economic value estimates specifically   
related to the WFD issue of disproportionate costs and in the context of   
full cost recovery.  
  
Based on the achievements during the first project year, work continues in   
the second project year in the 10 AquaMoney case studies where a   
common valuation design is developed for the following three main water   
management issues across EU Member States: water quality, water   
scarcity and ecological restoration of water systems. These case study   
results will be available together with a European database of existing   
economic value estimates for a wide range of surface and groundwater   
goods and services by the end of the second project year.