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In 2016-2018, the EEA will prepare an update on the state of EU waters in assessments based on the information that becomes available from the second generation of River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs). Included in the update will be flood impacts and flood risk management. The most prominent information on flood impacts and flood risk management at EU level is based on the reporting under the Floods Directive: information on past and future floods, the Flood Hazard and Risk Maps (FHRMs) and the draft Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs). This report is a conceptual assessment on how this information can be used to get a more comprehensive assessment on the quantitative and qualitative status of Europe’s water resources and the ecosystem services they provide. Without suggesting to be complete and aware of changes still being implemented in the FRMPs, the information allows us to make suggestions for an improved second cycle of implementation of the Floods Directive. It also enables us to develop a better understanding of freshwater ecosystem services, and of the environmental impact of flooding and flood protection measures.

Secondly, we want to explore the synergies between the Floods Directive and other water and nature legislation. In particular the WFD (EU 2000) and the Birds and Habitats Directives (EU 1992, 2010) are of interest, in the framework of streamlining environmental requirements as expressed in the Biodiversity 2020 Strategy (EC 2011a) and the potential revision of the WFD after 2018.

The third objective of this report is to identify and share good examples to improve the Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment (PFRA) in the next cycle of implementation of the Floods Directive in 2018. The second cycle will be started soon after the reporting of the Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs), which will complete the first cycle of implementation in March 2016. While many details about floods and their impacts are known on local level, it remains difficult to get a detailed European overview. The Floods Directive collects information on significant past floods as part of the PFRA (EU 2007, Art. 4). To be of most value for European wide assessments, the structured information provided needs to be detailed enough to create added value beyond some descriptive terms like ‘extreme event’ or ‘large impact’ but at the same time be general enough to be comparable. Where this is done to a certain extent in the PFRA in 2011, analysis of the information (e.g. (Kjeldsen, et al., 2013)) shows that more can be done in this regard.