A Wider Notion of the Scope of Water Services in EU Water Law Boosting Payment for Water-Related Ecosystem Services to Ensure Sustainable Water Management?

The services ecosystems on the Earth providing for mankind, like the provision of (clean) water for drinking and other purposes, are under pressure. Payment for (water-related) ecosystem services, incentive pricing policies and the recovery of service costs are instruments to attain a sustainable use of scarce environmental resources and ecosystems. Although the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), whose purpose explicitly includes striving for sustainable water use, includes an obligation to recover the costs of water services, the scope of application of this obligation depends on the width of the interpretation of 'water services' in the WFD. If 'water services' are interpreted broadly, the WFD embraces the concept of payment for water-related ecosystem services, but raises a number of questions that need to be addressed.