The AquaMoney project brings together 16 leading European research institutions to develop and test practical guidelines for the assessment of environmental and resource costs and benefits in the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). The concept of environmental and resource costs plays a central role in the economic analysis of the WFD, in particular for the cost recovery of water services (Article 9 WFD) and for the decision on exemptions on the grounds of disproportionate costs (Article 4 WFD). However, so far no clear and understandable guidelines exist for the assessment of environmental and resource costs in practice. AquaMoney was established to address this gap. It brings together 16 institutions from all parts of Europe, covering environmental economics as well as water management. The consortium is supported by an Advisory Committee of 24 stakeholders and decision makers. Over a three-year period from April 2006 to September 2009, the AquaMoney consortium willassess policy maker demand for information on ERCB, related to the implementation of the WFD; develop practice-oriented guidelines on how to assess ERCB in a quick and reliable way, with particular focus on the transfer of values between different sites; test these guidelines by carrying out economic valuation case studies in 10 different European river basins; analyse the experiences made and provide recommendations for decision makers. The experiences gained in the case studies will thus be used to refine the guidelines. The common design of the case studies will also permit investigation of techniques for transferring economic values of environmental and resource costs and benefits from water body level to national and international river basin level and vice versa. Part of this exercise will be to investigate the potential for using geographical information systems (GIS) to synthesise data from the case studies with available physical environment and census data so as to generate maps of expected benefits of improved water quality due to WFD implementation.The AquaMoney project duration has been extended until the end of September when the final Guidelines will be deliverd.