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As part its on-going participation to a framework contract with the European Commission on supporting the implementation of European water policies, Ecologic Institute led an assessment of how Member States' current Rural Development Programmes (2014-2020) address agricultural pressures on water bodies and promote measures that can contribute to protect and restore the water environment, reducing flood and drought risk. The report is available for download.

The analysis presented in this report examines whether Rural Development Programmes (RDPs) fulfil minimum regulatory requirements from European water legislation, but also whether RDPs go beyond compliance and offer good practice that can help ensure waters are restored to good status objectives of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). This report provides an EU level overview based on quantitative statistics compiled on 52 RDPs (out of 118), covering a total of 129.3 million ha of agricultural land, including 6.6 million ha of irrigated land, and 113 billion Euros of planned public spending. All MS were covered, including a selection of RDPs from MS which opted for a regional approach (Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK).

Compared to the first programming period of RDPs, rural development programmes of most Member States now present an improved level of integration with water management issues. However, as the RDP assessment presented in this report shows, additional efforts are needed to optimise the contribution that RDPs can make to support the reaching of WFD good status and reduce flood risk.