1. River GIGs: Future intercalibration needs/plans Presented by Wouter van de Bund Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability

2. Intercalibration status – River GIGs green – finalised results; red – not completed in current exercise
Macroinvertebrates completed
Phytobenthos completed for most GIGs
Macrophytes and Fish in progress
Horizontal open issues:
RC setting
Large rivers

3. River Intercalibration planning meetng – Lissabon 15-16 January 2008
Participants: lead persons and steering group members of all river GIGs for all QE
Purpose of the meeting: identification of open issues and making proposals how to address them
By quality element
Horizontal issues
Minutes distributed to ECOSTAT

4. Macroinvertebrates Common open issues: GIG specific issues:
how to deal with new and updated methods
reference conditions
intercalibrating methods aimed to detect effects of hydromorphological pressures
large rivers
GIG specific issues:
NO, CB GIG: Acidification
In progress in NO; CB GIG will draw from NO experience
EC GIG: Applying results to all MS (EC GIG)
New GIG lead: CZ
Anticipate problems with funding of the work

5. Phytobenthos
Limitations of the current results: RC and boundary setting comparability could be improved
Combining phytobenthos result with macrophyte results at QE level (‘official’ QE is phytobenthos AND macrophytes)

6. Fish
Work ongoing following the agreed plan

7. Macrophytes
Work in CB GIG ongoing following the agreed plan (meeting next week)
Other GIGs: macrophyte IC not started yet
Will wait for CB work to be completed (2008)
Will make plans taking advantage from CB experiences

8. Horizontal issues: IC methodology
Need to consolidate and publish the IC methodology:
Papers in scientific literature by QE in preparation
Step-by-step instructions for new and updated methods (as required in Guidelines) in preparation

9. Horizontal issues: Reference conditions
General agreement (in IC reports) that RC setting can and should be improved
First need to consolidate current state of work
3-step plan:
Stabilize the concepts
Harmonize the criteria (QE, GIGs)
Quantify the thresholds : search of "no effect" thresholds (this requires data analysis – we need concrete examples / case studies
Proposal that GIG leads/steering group produce two discussion papers during the spring as a concrete starting point of work in the GIGs (lead: J.-G. Wasson, FR)

10. Proposed way forward
GIGs need to update the planning sheets according to the outcome of the discussions (mostly minor)
If the proposed apprach is agreed by ECOSTAT, the GIG leads/steering group will proceed producing the papers as proposed during the spring
Large river expert meeting (involving all MS/GIGs) planned for this autumn to discuss the way forward
JRC will ask to (re)confirm the MS nominations for the various river GIG groups (some of the lists are outdated)