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The ecosystem services (ES) concept is embedded in all new European directives but its integration in the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is absent, despite the latter being the major legislative tool. The research aims to assess the knowledge of ES that lies within the River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) in Greece so as to further depict their representation in the relevant planning tools, to support policy making and express the implementation experience to Member States for assisting EU reloading processes. The information on the ES’ status was extracted by the official RBMPs, processed and grouped following Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) classification. The prioritization of ES included in the programs of measures (PoMs) further showed the targeting for each River Basin District (RBD). The results were not homogenous for the RBDs, revealing different needs in measures and indicating there is a lack in “communication” between the relevant EU and national regulations. Moreover, a wide suite of water-related ES is hindered in addressing multiple benefits coming from provisioning, regulating and cultural ES. For a proper WFD reload and continuation, the infusion of the ES concept and prerequisites in its objective, and the reviewing of the RBMPs’ target and the suggestion of integrated PoMs are necessary steps that could deliver added value in such legislation.

Eutrophication caused by nutrient enrichment is a predominant stressor leading to lake degradation and, thus, the set-up of boundaries that support good ecological status, the Water Framework Directive’s main target, is a necessity. Greece is one of the Member States that have recorded delays in complying with the coherent management goals of European legislation. A wide range of different statistical approaches has been proposed in the Best Practice Guide for determining appropriate nutrient thresholds. To determine the nutrient thresholds supporting the good status of natural Greek lakes, the phytoplankton dataset gathered from the national monitoring programme (2015–2020) was used for shallow and deep natural lakes. The regression analyses were sufficient and robust in order to derive total phosphorus thresholds that ranged from 20 to 41 μg/L in shallow and 15–32 μg/L in deep natural lake types. Nutrient boundaries that encompass the stressors these lakes are subject to, are essential in proper lake management design.

Freshwater ecosystems deliver various ecosystem services providing essential goods and services, on which humans depend. These include vital provision of water for domestic, agricultural and industrial use. Lake Pamvotis, a heavily modified urban lake is providing multiple services but at the same time is under multiple pressures. Setting as target the achievement of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) "Good Ecological Status or Potential" goal and acknowledging the revised River Basin Management Plan's Program of Measures, a set of six alternatives is suggested. For the preferable alternatives' selection, six criteria were adopted whose relations are given through a Driving Forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Responses (DPSIR) conceptual model. Qualitative judgments based on expert opinion are selected to describe the scores of the criteria which are finally evaluated as fuzzy numbers. A hybrid method which incorporates the outranking relation and the right of veto of the ELECTRE III method, and finally the net flow of the PROMETHEE method is developed. The proposed method is based on fuzzy sets and logic in order, firstly to interpret both the monocriterion comparison and the aggregation among the criteria and secondly to enable the evaluation of the criteria with fuzzy scores. The results prioritized the increase of the water quality for the improvement of water related ecosystem services among the other alternatives in all tests. The proposed method is suitable for environmental problems where the evaluation of the scores is not crisp and furthermore, commensurate alternatives are demanded.