The Environmental Liability Directive, the Water Framework Directive and the Definition of ‘Water Damage’

Abstract

The Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) focuses on remediating environmental damage. To assess environmental damage it uses existing assessment systems, and the constructs that are at the centre of these systems. One of these is ‘ecological status’ in the context of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The ELD refers to the WFD with respect to what ‘water damage’ concerns, without specifying what it means and it offers no threshold for when deterioration is significant enough to count as ‘water damage’. A definition of ‘water damage’ is developed, based on the European Court of Justice’s latest rulings, which clarify when the deterioration of a body of water is so significant that it passes from ‘deterioration’ under the WFD, to ‘water damage’ under the ELD.