Water-law permission as an administrative and legal instrument for the management and protection of water resources

Abstract

In the Member States of European Union, including Poland, the legal framework for the management and protection of water resources is determined in the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD). The aim of the article is to determine the impact of the revision of legal provisions in the field of water law licensing caused by the Directive implementation on the currently applicable framework for the protection and management of water resources in Poland. Based on the legal regulations and statistical data it was found that the implementation of WFD and related directives regarding sewage treatment plants limiting the inflow of nitrogen compounds from agriculture and priority substances to surface waters, contributed to an extension of scope of the activities that require this permission. That scope extension concerns both the protection of water resources in terms of quantity and quality e.g. water abstraction, agricultural fertilization, reclamation of water reservoirs, protection of flood risk areas and use of waters for economic and service purposes. All this indicates a more restrictive approach of the legislator to the protection of the most valuable resource in the environment, which should contribute to possible achievement of a good state of surface water, as is the main goal of the WFD.