Protecting and restoring Europe's waters: an analysis of the future development needs of the Water Framework Directive (WFD)

100 water experts took part in a questionnaire in relation to updating the Water Framework Directive (WFD). This article provides recommendations to improve the WFD Directive with regard to monitoring and assessment systems, improving programmes of measures and further integration with other sectoral policies. The analysis highlights that there is great potential to enhance assessment schemes through strategic design of monitoring networks and innovation, such as earth observation. New diagnostic tools that use existing WFD monitoring data, but incorporate novel statistical and trait-based approaches could be used more widely to diagnose the cause of deterioration under conditions of multiple pressures and deliver a hierarchy of solutions for more evidence-driven decisions in river basin management.