Table of contents
- 2. REPORTING AT SURFACE WATER BODY LEVEL (SCHEMA SWB)
- 2.3. Pressures and impacts on surface waters
- 2.4. Ecological status and exemptions
- 2.5. Chemical status of surface waters, exemptions and Mixing Zones
- 3. REPORTING AT GROUNDWATER BODY LEVEL (SCHEMA GWB)
- 3.3. Pressures and impacts on groundwater
- 3.4. Quantitative status of groundwater and exemptions
- 3.5. Chemical status of groundwater and exemptions
- 4. MONITORING (SCHEMA MONITORING)
- 5. PROTECTED AREAS (SCHEMAS SWB AND GWB)
- 6. REPORTING AT MS LEVEL: COMPETENT AUTHORITIES, RBDS AND SUB-UNITS (SCHEMA RBDSUCA)
- 7. REPORTING AT RBD/SUB-UNIT LEVEL FOR SURFACE WATER (SCHEMA SWMET)
- 7.3. Methodologies classification ecological status and potential
- 7.4. Methodologies classification chemical status
- 7.5. Overall management objectives (nutrients, river continuity)
- 7.6. Definition of significant pressures and impacts
- 7.7. Methodologies exemptions
- 8. REPORTING AT RBD/SUB-UNIT LEVEL FOR GROUNDWATER (SCHEMA GWMET)
- 8.4. Definition of significant pressures and impacts
- 8.5. Methodologies exemptions
- 9. REPORTING AT RBD/SUB-UNIT LEVEL FOR RBMP (SCHEMA RBMPPOM)
- 9.4. Water abstractions and exploitation of water resources
- 10. PROGRAMME OF MEASURES REPORTED AT RBD/SUB-UNIT LEVEL (SCHEMA RBMPPOM)
- 10.2. Targeted questions on basic measures and other aspects
- 10.3. Estimates of cost of measures
- 10.4. Co-ordination of measures in international RBDs
- 10.5. Progress with and achievements of the programme of measures for the first planning cycle
- 11. REPORTING AT RBD/SUB-UNIT LEVEL FOR ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND COST RECOVERY (SCHEMA RBMPPOM)
- Overview of comments presented at WG DIS
- WISE spatial data presentation at WG DIS
7.3. Methodologies classification ecological status and potential
Annex V of the WFD specifies how Member States are to monitor and present ‘status’ classification. The European Commission needs to ensure that ‘good status/potential’ has been defined according to the provisions of the Directive, and in a consistent and comparable way throughout the EU. The status requirements refer to all QEs in the Directive, chemical and biological. The normative provisions of Annex V provide a starting point. However, interpretation and application of these definitions may differ which may lead to a wide range of variation between the Member States. In this respect, it is important to compare the criteria and thresholds that Member States have set. Whilst it is recognised that the intercalibration exercise has set out to ensure that the definition of high and good ecological status is consistent, the intercalibration exercise will not result in the findings of whether the Member States have followed the results of intercalibration or whether class boundaries have been established for all required water body types and quality elements. However, the intercalibration exercise has provided a useful template for the collection of such information which has been used in the development of this WFD Reporting Guidance.
Class BQEMethod
- Please include here any comments which apply to all the schema elements in this Class.
- In addition to those general schema element level comments, we welcome your views on: a) whether you think this Class can be simplified; and b) whether you think the linkages with other reporting Classes or Schemas can be improved, and how;
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We suggest to add a schema element (column) to indicate whether the surface water body is a natural or a heavily modified water body or an artificial water body. This is due to the fact that some methods are specific for HMWBs or AWBs.
HU: Agreed, Hungary supports
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bqeMethodName - Required.
Provide the name(s) of the assessment method(s) used for this BQE and category. The name(s) must be the same name(s) used in the RBMPs or background documents.
bqePercentageOfTypes - Required.
Report the percentage of types for this BQE and category for which an assessment method is fully developed.
bqeSensitivityImpactNutrients - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is the assessment method mainly sensitive to nutrient pollution?
bqeSensitivityImpactOrganic - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is the assessment method mainly sensitive to organic pollution?
bqeSensitivityImpactChemical - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is the assessment method mainly sensitive to chemical pollution?
bqeSensitivityImpactSaline - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is the assessment method mainly sensitive to saline pollution?
bqeSensitivityImpactAcidification - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is the assessment method mainly sensitive to acidification?
bqeSensitivityImpactTemperature - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is the assessment method mainly sensitive to elevated temperatures?
bqeSensitivityImpactHydrological - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is the assessment method mainly sensitive to altered habitats due to hydrological changes?
bqeSensitivityImpactMorphological - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is the assessment method mainly sensitive to altered habitats due to morphological changes?
bqeSensitivityImpactOther - Optional.
If relevant, report any other impact to which the assessment method is mainly sensitive that is not covered in the previous questions.
Class SWSupportingQE
- Please include here any comments which apply to all the schema elements in this Class.
- In addition to those general schema element level comments, we welcome your views on: a) whether you think this Class can be simplified; and b) whether you think the linkages with other reporting Classes or Schemas can be improved, and how;
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Observation regarding the Schema SWSupportingQE: we suggest to be ruled out due to the same information provided in Quality element schema or to link with QualityElement Schema by qeCode.
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The reporting guidance states that we should “select each physico-chemical QE at the level 4 of aggregation in turn from the enumeration list and report the information in each of the following schema elements for each QE”.
We asked the helpdesk for clarification as it was not clear for us if we had to select each QE listed in annex 8h at least once even if it was not monitored respectively not used for the status assessment or if we only had to select those QEs for which we have indicated in the schema element “supportingQECategoryRW” that they were assessed in terms of ecological status/potential. The helpdesk indicated that the class "SWPhysicoChemicalQE" was intended to report the standards that were used in the assessment and that we should report these for the QEs which have been assessed. This clarification should be included in the reporting guidance in order to avoid any misunderstandings in the future.
supportingQECode - Required.(SupportingQE_Enum )
Select each supporting hydromorphological and physico-chemical QE in turn from the enumeration list and report the information in each of the following schema elements for each supporting QE.
supportingQECategoryRW - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is this supporting QE assessed in terms of ecological status/potential in rivers?
supportingQECategoryLW - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is this supporting QE assessed in terms of ecological status/potential in lakes?
supportingQECategoryTW - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is this supporting QE assessed in terms of ecological status/potential in transitional waters?
supportingQECategoryCW - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Is this supporting QE assessed in terms of ecological status/potential in coastal waters?
supportingQESensitivityBQE - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether the classification boundaries for this supporting QE are related to the class boundaries for the sensitive BQEs.
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We suggest to create an option/a possibility to indicate if the classification boundaries for a certain supporting QE and the class boundaries for sensitive BQE are reported in accordance with/are relevant to the water category (for example: in the schema element supportingQEcode, several quality elements are the same for several water body categories and not specific for a certain one e.g. QE3-1-3 - Oxygenation conditions, QE3-1-6 - Nutrient conditions). These are assessed in terms of ecological status/potential, but it is not possible to indicate the relationship between classification boundaries for a certain supporting QE (for each WB category) and the class boundaries for sensitive BQE. Also, we suggest to add a schema element (column) to indicate whether the surface water body is a natural or an artificial or a heavily modified water body. This issue is important due to the fact that the relation between classification boundaries for a certain supporting QE (for each WB category) and the class boundaries for sensitive BQE depends whether the surface water body is a natural or an artificial or a heavily modified water body.
Class SWPhysicoChemicalQE
- Please include here any comments which apply to all the schema elements in this Class.
- In addition to those general schema element level comments, we welcome your views on: a) whether you think this Class can be simplified; and b) whether you think the linkages with other reporting Classes or Schemas can be improved, and how;
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The reporting guidance states that we should “select each physico-chemical QE at the level 4 of aggregation in turn from the enumeration list and report the information in each of the following schema elements for each QE”.
We asked the helpdesk for clarification as it was not clear for us if we had to select each QE listed in annex 8h at least once even if it was not monitored respectively not used for the status assessment or if we only had to select those QEs for which we have indicated in the schema element “supportingQECategoryRW” that they were assessed in terms of ecological status/potential. The helpdesk indicated that the class "SWPhysicoChemicalQE" was intended to report the standards that were used in the assessment and that we should report these for the QEs which have been assessed. This clarification should be included in the reporting guidance in order to avoid any misunderstandings in the future.
physChemQECode - Required.(PhysChemQE_Enum)
Select each physico-chemical QE at the level 4 of aggregation in turn from the enumeration list and report the information in each of the following schema elements for each QE. If the QE for which there is a standard is not included the enumeration list please select the most relevant ‘Other’ QE and describe in more detail in physChemQEOther.
physChemQEOther - Conditional.
Report details of the physico-chemical QE for which there is a standard if it is not included the enumeration list in physChemQECode.
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the quality check should be corrected to:
Quality checks: Conditional check: Report if physChemQECode is ‘QE3-1-1-2 Other determinand for transparency’, ‘QE3-1-2-2 Other determinand for thermal conditions’, ‘QE3-1-3-3 Other determinand for oxygenation conditions’, ‘QE3-1-4-2 Other determinand for salinity’, ‘QE3-1-5-3 Other determinand for acidification status’ or ‘QE3-1-6-4 Other determinand for nutrient conditions’.
physChemCategoryTW - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Does this physico-chemical standard apply to transitional waters?
physChemCategoryCW - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Does this physico-chemical standard apply to coastal waters?
physChemTypeCode - Required.
For each standard, report the Member State code for the characterisation type of the water body, as reported in the surface water characterisation schema (in schema element surfaceWaterBodyTypeCode), and the RBMP and background documents.
physChemValue - Required.
Report the value or range of the physico-chemical standard representing the good-moderate boundary only.
physChemUnit - Required.(UnitOfMeasure_Enum)
Report the unit of the physico-chemical standard. If ‘Other’ is selected then provide more information on the unit in physChemUnitOther.
physChemUnitOther - Conditional.
Report if the unit of the physico-chemical standard is reported as ‘Other’ in physChemUnit.
physChemStandardType - Required.(PhysChemStandardType_Enum)
Select the type of physico-chemical standard applied.
physChemStandardOther - Conditional.
Report if the type of physico-chemical standard applied is reported as ‘Other’ in physChemStandardType.
physChemGMBoundary - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether the physico-chemical standard is consistent to the good-moderate status boundary of the relevant sensitive BQEs.
Class SWRBSP
- Please include here any comments which apply to all the schema elements in this Class.
- In addition to those general schema element level comments, we welcome your views on: a) whether you think this Class can be simplified; and b) whether you think the linkages with other reporting Classes or Schemas can be improved, and how;
rbspCode - Required.(RBSP_Enum)
Select each River Basin Specific Pollutant (RBSP) with a good-moderate EQS from the enumeration list. If there is more than one standard per substance (e.g. because there are different standards for different categories or matrices), the same RBSP can be introduced more than once.
rbspOther - Conditional.
If ‘rbspCode’ is ‘EEA_00-00-0 - Other chemical parameter’ please indicate in this field the CAS number (if relevant) and the name of the RBSP.
rbspMatrix - Required.(Matrix_Enum)
Select the matrix in which the standard for the RBSP is applied for the purpose of assessment of ecological status.
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Should it be necessary to maintain biota and biota-other?
rbspStandardType - Required.(EQStandardType_Enum)
Select the type of standard applied for each RBSP and matrix.
rbspValue - Required.
For every combination of RBSP, matrix, standard type and category, report the value or range of the RBSP standard representing the good-moderate boundary only.
rbspScale - Required.(GeographicalScale_Enum)
Report the geographical scale at which the RBSP standard is applied.
rbspTechGuidance - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether the RBSP standard has been derived in accordance with the 2011 Technical Guidance Document No 27
rbspAnalyticalMethod - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether the analytical method used meets the minimum performance criteria laid down in Article 4.1 of the QA/QC Directive (2009/90/EC) for the strictest standard applied.
rbspAnalyticalMethodBAT - Conditional.(YesNoCode_Enum)
If the analytical method does not meet the minimum performance criteria laid down in Article 4.1 of the QA/QC Directive, indicate whether the analytical method complies with the requirements laid down in Article 4.2 of the QA/QC Directive (2009/90/EC) for the strictest standard applied.
Class SWTargetedQ
- Please include here any comments which apply to all the schema elements in this Class.
- In addition to those general schema element level comments, we welcome your views on: a) whether you think this Class can be simplified; and b) whether you think the linkages with other reporting Classes or Schemas can be improved, and how;
oneOutAllOut - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether the ‘one-out, all-out’ principle been applied in deriving the overall classification of the ecological status of a water body.
groupingExtrapolation - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether the grouping of water bodies has been used in extrapolating the assessment and classification of ecological status from monitored water bodies to those water bodies with no monitoring sites.
gepDefined - Required.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether good ecological potential (GEP) has been defined.
gepApproach - Conditional.(GEPApproach_Enum)
Report the approach that has been adopted for defining GEP.
gepBiology - Conditional.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether GEP has been defined in terms of biology (BQEs).
mitigationMeasures - Conditional.(MitigationMeasure_Enum )
Select the mitigation measures without significant adverse effects on the use or the wider environment from the enumeration list that have been identified to define GEP. More than one mitigation measure may be selected.
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It could be helpful to add "Other" as an option in annex 8m as well as a new schema element in order to describe the "other measure".
bqeForMEPGEP - Conditional.(BQE_Enum )
Select the BQEs from the enumeration list for which biological values were derived to define MEP and GEP. More than one BQE may be selected.
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Quality checks: Conditional check: Report if gepDefined is ‘Yes’.
Suggestion: “Report if gepBiology is ‘Yes’.”
If GEP is defined and Mitigation Measures (Prague) Approach has been adopted for defining GEP and so the GEP has not been defined in terms of biology the original Conditional check indicates untrue problem.
gesGepComparison - Conditional.(YesNoCode_Enum)
Indicate whether good ecological status (GES) and GEP have been compared, e.g. measured on a common scale.
ecologicalStatusMethodReference - Required.(ReferenceType )
Provide references or hyperlinks to technical documents describing the methodologies used for the assessment of ecological status. Guidance on what should be included in this document is provided in Section 7.3.3.3
gepMethodReference - Required.(ReferenceType )
Provide references or hyperlinks to technical documents describing the methodologies used for the assessment of ecological potential. Guidance on what should be included in this document is provided in Section 7.3.3.3
driversFailureEcologicalStatusPotentialReference - Required.(ReferenceType)
Provide references or hyperlinks to technical documents describing the drivers and impacts behind the failures of good ecological status and potential. Guidance on what should be included in this document is provided in Section 7.3.3.3.
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For the reference it is asked a table which is more accurate than enumeration. In enumeration driver is also combined with pressure. It is problematic to form such table which have different categories than used elsewhere in reporting. It would be a good idea to have a conceptual model of how the information should be organized in order to get all the information requested for reporting purposes.
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This element is not reported in France due to lack of methodology and information. It is too complex at the moment to be assessed from a scientific point of view, with sufficient certainty. We would advocate for this element to be identified as optional.
Guidance on contents of RBMPs/background documents
(Please see the full text of this sub-section in the WFD Reporting Guidance 2016 or above chapter)
Include here any comments that relate to the information contained in this sub-section of the Reporting Guidance, namely concerning information you think could/should be reported electronically and information which you believe should not be included in the River Basin Management Plans or background documents.
We suggest to add a schema element (column) to indicate whether the surface water body is a natural or a heavily modified water body or an artificial water body. This is due to the fact that some methods are specific for HMWBs or AWBs.