D - Water basin district, information and public participation
1 - The River basin district
The Member States must identify the basin districts located within their territories and also identify the appropriate competent authority within each river basin district (1). The “success” of the WFD relies not only “close cooperation and coherent action at Community, Member States and local level”
; it also relies on the “information, consultation and involvement of the public”
(2).
1 - The River basin district
The Member States must identify the basin districts located within their territories . Those districts are regrouped in river basin districts (Articles 2(15) and 3(1)). It is at the level of such river basin districts that the management of water resources should take place, and this is an innovation brought by the WFD. Appropriate administrative arrangements for the application of the rules of the WFD must thus be made individually within each river basin district (Article 3(2)), albeit in a coordinated way in each such basin and for the whole of it (Article 3(4)).

River basins covering the territory of more than one Member State should be assigned to an international river basin district, with respect to which there should be interstate cooperation. They are each required to make the appropriate administrative arrangements within the portion of any international river basin district lying within their territory (Article 3(3)). In practice, the duty of coordination is to a large extent satisfied by the existence of pre-existing structures derived from international agreements (such as the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine and the International Commission for the Protection of the Meuse . In the case of river basin districts extending beyond the territory of the Community, the Member States are only bound, in addition, to applying the rules of the directive on their own respective territories, and to endeavour to establish appropriate coordination with the relevant third countries (Article 3(5)).
