Annexes to COM(2009)156 - In accordance with article 18.3 of the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC on programmes for monitoring of water status - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2009)156 - In accordance with article 18.3 of the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC on programmes for monitoring of water status. |
|---|---|
| document | COM(2009)156  |
| date | April 1, 2009 |
For the first time ever, Member States have reported electronically through WISE, the W ater I nformation S ystem for E urope[4]. The electronic submission of reports through WISE has proven to be successful with a total of 24 Member States having reported through this channel to date. WISE provides for a more effective and streamlined reporting and is already bringing benefits in terms of avoiding double reporting of monitoring stations.
However, there are still some improvements needed to ensure that the reports submitted are clear and comprehensive. Clear and comprehensive reporting is a pre-requisite to enable the Commission to carry out a proper analysis of the implementation. Good practice examples of clear reporting include the reports of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Netherlands.
Monitoring
In general terms, there is a good monitoring effort across the European Union. More than 107,000 monitoring stations were reported for monitoring of surface water and groundwater under the Water Framework Directive. On surface waters, by far the largest number of monitoring stations is located on rivers (75%), followed by lakes (13%), coastal waters (10%) and transitional waters (2%).
In general, it appears that the provisions of Annex V to the WFD and the existing guidance documents on monitoring of surface water and groundwater have been applied, although there is room for improvement in some Member States to improve the understanding and application of the basic concepts of surveillance, operational and investigative monitoring.
The reports from Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary can be cited as examples of good practice, showing a clear approach to the development of WFD monitoring programmes. In addition, the reports from Ireland and the United Kingdom show a significant monitoring effort to ensure confidence in the monitoring results. Finally, the efforts of the countries joining the EU 2007 should also be acknowledged. Whilst the development of methods to assess ecological status is far from being completed in Bulgaria and Romania, the monitoring programmes have been established in accordance with the concepts of the WFD and, particularly in Romania, provide for comprehensive monitoring.
One of the key elements of the WFD is that it sets a framework to take into account all pressures and impacts in the aquatic environment and integrates the requirements of other key existing EU water legislation as minimum basic measures. The WFD requires specific monitoring of protected areas, in particular in water bodies used for the abstraction of drinking water and in water dependent habitat and species protection areas. However, in many cases these specific requirements have not been clearly incorporated into the WFD monitoring programmes. The programmes adopted in Ireland can be cited as a positive example of an approach to meet these requirements through specific monitoring sub-nets. The integration of monitoring requirements from other Directives into the monitoring programmes under the WFD should bring benefits for planning and allocating resources for monitoring more efficiently.
Despite international coordination mechanisms being in place in many international river basin districts only a few Member States such as Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Romania and United Kingdom have reported using them in establishing their monitoring programmes. In order to ensure a targeted and sound planning of the programme of measures in international river basin districts, Member States need to coordinate monitoring programmes within the river basin district in order to provide an integrated assessment of the existing pressures and impacts.
The main aim of monitoring is to assess the status of water with the assessment of ecological status of surface waters being of central importance. As has already been seen in the intercalibration exercise[5], there remain quite a number of gaps in the development of biological assessment methods for determining ecological status. The analysis of the information provided on monitoring programmes shows that there are still many river basin districts where the necessary assessment methods for biological quality elements are not yet in place. This is particularly true in the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. It is very important that Member States conclude the development of their national methods and continue the work on intercalibration to finalise the exercise by 2011 as agreed by the Water Framework Directive Committee (Intercalibration Work Programme 2008-2011). There are several research programmes on-going which are expected to bring valuable information for the completion of the intercalibration exercise, one of the main ones being WISER[6].
Little information was delivered on the levels of confidence and precision of the overall monitoring programmes and in particular of the assessment methods for ecological status. It is therefore difficult to assess whether the monitoring programmes will deliver a sufficient level of confidence and precision for the purpose of providing a coherent and comprehensive overview of the status of water bodies across the river basin districts and to inform the decision making in relation to the programme of measures. The river basin management plans due at the end of 2009 will provide the whole picture of the river basin districts in terms of pressures, impacts, status assessment and measures and this will enable the Commission to assess comprehensively the results delivered by the monitoring programmes.
[1] Directive 2000/60/EC, OJ L327 of 22.12.2000, as amended
[2] COM(1007)128 final and the accompanying documents SEC(2007) 362
[3] SEC(2009) 415
[4] See http://water.europa.eu/
[5] See Commission Decision 2008/915/EC of 30 October 2008 establishing, pursuant to Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, the values of the Member State monitoring system classifications as a result of the intercalibration exercise, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:332:0020:0044:EN:PDF
[6] http://www.wiser.eu