The Water Framework Directive 2000/60 EEC established a community framework for action in the field of water policy. It represents an important change in the fundamentals of water planning and management, based on a sustainable and respectful use of water resources.
Naider has played a notable role in the incorporation in the Basque Country of its environmental objectives and a series of mechanisms and economic tools for cost-effectiveness analysis of the measures to be applied and water pricing policy .
As a preliminary step for the implementation of these instruments, Naider participated in carrying out various studies such as the “Economic Analysis of Water Services in the Basque Country” and the “Economic Characterization of Water Uses in the Basque Country” in order to have sufficient information to prepare the “Report on Articles 5 and 6 of the Water Framework Directive”.
Likewise, an “Initial evaluation of the implementation of the IPCC proposals in hydrological planning tasks” was carried out in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country with the study of the characteristics, capacities and limitations of the existing supply and sanitation infrastructures in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country that are relevant from the perspective of climate change, and the detailed determination of the cascade of possible impacts in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country derived from climate change that are related to the water system.
This ongoing work on sustainable water management has also materialized in the preparation of a series of dissemination documents on the “Main strategic capacities of the Basque Country in relation to climate change, energy and sustainable water management”. The resulting material exposes the most relevant actions that the Basque Government is developing in these areas, especially highlighting the public policies deployed in recent years.
In recent times, Naider has supported the Basque Water Agency (URA) in the management and standardization of rates. A procedure for calculating the average rates for the supply and sanitation of drinking water in the Basque Country has been developed for them. Once the procedure has been adjusted and updated based on the basic information available, it allows simulating and comparing the costs of drinking water between different territorial areas of the Basque Country (population entities, municipalities, counties, historical territories and basins).