Hydrographic demarcation

1. A hydrographic demarcation is understood to be the land and marine area comprised of one or more adjacent river basins and the transitional, groundwater, and coastal waters associated with those basins. Transitional waters are surface water bodies near river mouths that are partially saline due to their proximity to coastal waters but receive a significant influence from freshwater inflows. Coastal waters are surface waters located inland from a line whose entirety lies one nautical mile seaward from the nearest point of the baseline used to measure the breadth of territorial waters and which extend, where applicable, to the outer limit of the transitional waters. 2. Coastal waters shall be specified and included in the nearest or most appropriate hydrographic demarcation or demarcations. 3. Aquifers that do not fully correspond to any particular demarcation shall be included in the nearest or most appropriate demarcation. Each demarcation may be assigned the portion of the aquifer corresponding to its respective territorial area, and in this case, coordinated management must be guaranteed through appropriate notifications between the affected demarcations. 4. The river basin demarcation, as the main unit for basin management purposes, constitutes the spatial area to which the water protection regulations set forth in this law apply, without prejudice to any specific marine environment protection regime that the State may establish. 5. The Government, by royal decree, after consulting the autonomous communities, shall establish the territorial scope of each river basin demarcation, which shall coincide with that of its hydrological plan.