Summary:

In comparison with previous achievements connected with implementation of the European Union legislation related to the water resources management, the potential critical points of the Water Framework Directive implementation in Europe and in Poland are presented. In assessment of potential risk, organization of the implementation process, its financing and schedule, as well as data issues were considered. The demanding schedule of the Directive implementation is based on six-year cycle of planning, with established logical sequence of particular actions. Realization of each action on time, let us to go to the next point of the schedule. In order to implementation European regulations coordination of work and cooperation among all institutions involved in the whole process is necessary. Only mobilization and integration of circles connected with water resources management, allow to work out the best solutions, which allow to fully implement of the WFD resolutions. From among already finished work related to the Directive, in this paper Authors focused on experience connected with realization: “Assessment of the hazard that aggregated water bodies will fail to meet the environmental quality objectives” and “Assessment of the risk that aggregated water bodies will fail to meet the environmental quality objectives” in pilot catchment area of Upper Vistula in the Regional Water Authorities in Cracow and Gliwice activity area. In the first task, which is a result of necessity to prepare programme of measures for the particular catchments, firstly, in harmony with established for this purpose procedure, the analysis of anthropogenic pressures and impacts for aggregated surface water bodies were done. Environmental objectives, which should result in a good status for water bodies by 2015 year, were determined in the next stage. In the second task the assessment of the risk that aggregated water bodies will fail to meet the environmental quality objectives was made for each water body and was based on assumptions related to chemical and morphological status. From among collected experiences connected with implementation of the WFD, Authors are taken up of problems such as: lack of data and difficulties with access to existing data, financial difficulties and the problems with prompt completion of work at each point on the timetable of the WFD implementation, which could have a significant influence on the proper continuation of actions in this process.