1. Working Group A ECOSTAT Summary Milestone Reports: River GIGs Wouter van de Bund Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability Inland and Marine Waters Unit

2. GIG ‘Milestone 3’ Reports
Questionnaire sent out to all GIGs February 2005:
Organisation of the GIGs
Scope of the work
Data collection
Class boundary setting procedure
Additional remarks
Responses from all GIGs 

3. 1a – Organisation: involvement of countries (green– OK; red– not fully involved yet; bold italic –lead GIG/Steering group)
Northern
Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden
United Kingdom
Central/ Baltic
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
Alpine
Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Spain
Mediterranean
Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta
Portugal, Spain
Eastern Continental
Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, (ICPDR)     

4. 1b – Organisation: GIG meetings
Northern
Stockholm March 2004
Oslo, 3-5 November 2004
Next meeting: Helsinki, April 2005
Central/ Baltic
Brussels, 20 April 2004 (7 MS)
Milano, September 2004 (10 MS)
Berlin, February 2004 (13 MS)
Next meeting: Tallinn, June 2005
Alpine
Vienna, June 2004
Ispra, 6 October 2004
Next meeting: April/May 2005
Mediterranean
Lyon, November 2004
Ispra, 14 March 2005
Eastern Continental
Vienna, 2 December 2004
Next meeting: Bratislava, May 2005 

5. 1c – Organisation: GIG work plans?
Northern
Version 7 (23 February 2005)
Central/ Baltic
Last updated September 2004
Alpine
Mediterranean
Version 2 (10 February 2005)
Eastern Continental
“IC Manual for the Eastern Continental Region” – Draft 6 (17 January 2005) 
Level of detail differs widely between GIGs! 

6. GIG organisation – Main points
All GIGs are organised and working
Some minor problems with partipation:
Central/Baltic: SE and CZ
Mediterranean: CY, GR, MT
Eastern Continental: CZ, GR
Not all GIGs have detailed and updated work plans

7. 2a – Intercalibration types included?
# IC types initially defined
# IC types with sites in register
# IC types included now
# IC types included later
Northern 9 7 3 6
Central/ Baltic
Alpine 2
Mediterranean 5 1 5?
Eastern Continental     

8. 2b – Pressures included? (X – ‘promised’; Green – yes; red – no; grey – unknown)
Organic / nutrients
Stream Modification
Acidification
Northern X
Central/ Baltic
Alpine
Mediterranean
Eastern Continental    

9. Phyto-benthos, Diatoms
2b – Quality elements included? (X – ‘promised’; Green – yes, now; yellow – yes, later; grey – unknown)
Macroinv.
Phyto-benthos, Diatoms
Macro-phytes
Fish
Northern X
Central/ Baltic
Alpine
Mediterranean
Eastern Continental     

10. 2c –Options & Common Metrics
Northern 2
Tests: ASPT, Danish Fauna Index;
STAR/AQEM at later stage
Central/ Baltic
Hybrid 2/3 (IC guidance Annex III
ICMi (ASPT, EPTD, 1-GOLD, #families, #EPT families, Shannon/Weaver diversity)
will be updated after pilot
Alpine
ICM (#taxa, #EPT taxa, #sensitive taxa, ASPT)
STAR ICM will be tested
Mediterranean
- New ICM (R-M1, R-M2, R-M4)
- to be defined (R-M3 and R-M5)
Eastern Continental
2 (see EC IC manual)
Saprobic index
BMW/ASPT

11. Scope of the work – main points
CB, Alpine, EC GIGs: all (most) types included
Northern and Med. GIGs worked only on few types so far
Strong focus on ‘general pressure’
Strong focus on macroinvertebrates
Still unclear if/how other QE will be included

12. Options and common metrics – main points
Alpine, MED, CB  hybrid 2/3
ICM(i) approach common metric
Methodology developed and tested in STAR project
Metrics under development, may be type-specific
Preference for ‘compare first – explain later’ approach
NO, EC  option 2
Metrics under development/testing

13. No clear overview at this stage
3 – Data Collection – 1
Started?
What?
Where?
Northern
Yes ?
Pilot sites
Central/ Baltic
Macroinvertebrate ICMi related to national metrics
Countries participating in pilot
Alpine
All countries
Mediterranean
Eastern Continental
No clear overview at this stage 

14. Most (pilot); CZ, SE not involved
3 – Data Collection – 2
Organisation
Only IC sites?
Did all countries contribute?
Additional sampling?
Northern
Different persons responsible for completing test for different types; agreed data template No
Yes FI
(others?)
Central/ Baltic
Data remain at national level; agreed (Excel) template; different persons responsible for collating results for different types
Most (pilot); CZ, SE not involved UK
FR (others?)
Alpine
Same approach as Central/Baltic
Mediterranean
Same approach as Central/Baltic (?, to be confirmed)
No (CY, MT, SI missing)
PT CY
Eastern Continental
Central GIG database (?)
No (CZ, GR missing)

15. Data Collection – main points
No clear overview of data collected so far
EC GIG plans central data collection for IC sites only
Other GIGs:
Data handling at MS level following agreed procedure
MS use all available data
Collation of results by common type at GIG level
Pilots have been successfully completed
Need for flexibility in data handling and reporting
rigid reporting system would be a burden

16. 4 – Class boundary setting procedure (Orange – planned; yellow – ongoing; Green – finished)
a. Agreement on reference conditions
b. Rules HG boundary
c. Data set illustrating degradation
d. Criteria for good and moderate status classes
e. Criteria to derive boundary values
f. Set boundary EQR values
Northern
Tests at MS level
Central/ Baltic
Comparable approaches (REFCOND); problems with some types
Initially at MS level
‘compare first – explain later’
Alpine
Comparable approaches – (REFCOND
Mediterranean
Eastern Continental

17. Class boundary setting – main points
GIGs have started work on reference conditions setting ( REFCOND guidance)
Difficult to deal with rest of boundary setting procedure
IC process guidance document is not sufficiently clear
Most river GIGs prefer a “Compare first – explain later” approach
Start with agreement on reference conditions
Class boundary setting as iterative process
Still unclear how/when this iterative process will take place!!