Managing the nutrient loads of the Venice Lagoon Watershed: are the loads external to the watershed relevant under the WFD River Basin District framework?

ABSTRACT Azzellino A., Carpani M., Cevirgen S., Giupponi C., Parati P., Ragusa F., Salvetti R. 2013. Managing the nutrient loads of the Venice Lagoon Watershed: are the loads external to the watershed relevant under the WFD River Basin District framework? Water policy in the EU needs to be increasingly coordinated under the integrated management structure required by Water Framework Directive. In the WFD framework, all river catchments are assigned to administrative River Basin Districts (RBDs) that produce river basin management plans (RBMPs). RBMPs need to define appropriate Program of Measures (PoMs) based on the knowledge of the pressures and impacts affecting the water environments. However, pressures may also be external to the administrative RBDs, and still play a significant role. This study presents the case of the Venice Lagoon Watershed (VLW) and analyses the apportionment of the nutrient loads discharged to the lagoon by apportioning the external and the internal nutrient sources. VLW is inclu...