Water Code (Law No. 178-VIII ZRK).

This Water Code comprehensively regulates public relations in the field of protection and use of the water fund and water resources of the country. It defines key concepts (waterbodies, water resources, water users and consumers, drainage, irrigation, water protection zones, strategic and potentially dangerous hydraulic structures, etc.) and establishes that the aggregate of surface and groundwater within the national territory forms the state water fund, which is owned and managed by the State in the interests of the people. The Code’s stated aims are to achieve ecologically safe and economically optimal levels of water use, ensure water security, adapt the water sector to climate change, and secure fair and equal access to water, with priority for drinking water supply and ecological (environmental) flows. The Code sets out principles such as basin-based management, priority of water protection, recognition of the economic value of water, water saving, access to information, and public participation. It distinguishes general and special water use, regulates rights and obligations of water users, and introduces water servitudes. It creates a multi-level governance framework (interstate, national, basin and territorial), detailing the powers of the Government, the central authorized water body, other sectoral authorities (environment, health, geology, agriculture, housing and utilities), and local representative and executive bodies. It mandates strategic planning tools: a 15 year General Plan for Integrated Water Resources Management, basin plans, water balances, a national information report on water use, a national water information system, state water monitoring and a state water register. It also establishes unified systems of norms (environmental flows, water use limits, water quality classification, norms of water consumption and disposal) and several types of expert review. The Code provides a licensing type regime for special water use through permits, with detailed preconditions (infrastructure ownership, metering, sanitary zones, environmental permits, monitoring and plans for loss reduction and best available technologies). It regulates limitation, suspension and revocation of permits, and introduces operational response measures (including reduction of permitted volumes) linked to compliance. It sets out a structured system of state control and supervision, including basin water inspections, types of inspections, preventive control, and public control. Economic regulation is based on taxation for water use, tariffs for regulated services, and extensive state support and subsidies for water infrastructure, irrigation, water saving technologies and strategic hydraulic structures. The Code devotes substantial provisions to the operation, safety and registration of water and hydraulic structures, including potentially dangerous dams and mandatory safety declarations, and prescribes detailed water protection measures (prohibitions and restrictions in waterbodies, water protection zones and belts, sanitary protection zones, and special regimes for small waterbodies, wetlands, glaciers and waterbodies of special state significance). It also regulates municipal water supply and sewerage systems, technical water supply, use of treated wastewater, accounting and quality control of drinking water and wastewater, and the use of water for agriculture, industry, hydropower, recreation, fisheries, hunting, fire-fighting and other sectors. Finally, it establishes principles for international cooperation on transboundary watercourses, provides for interstate commissions.