1. Anne Lyche Solheim, NIVA, team-leader for freshwater in ETC/W
ETC Water - Freshwater Team Test data exchange to support development of a biological indicators for rivers and lakes
Anne Lyche Solheim, NIVA,
team-leader for freshwater in ETC/W
Ecostat meeting April 2009, Brussels

2. EEA State of the Environment Reporting
5-year cycle of EEA reports on State of the Environment, next report in 2010, drafted this year
Indicator based reporting:
Data Provided by Member States (voluntarily through WISE-EIONET)
Tracks efficiency of legislation on environmental improvement
Reports on environmental status and trends
Visualisation on WISE maps and graphs
EEAs core product are reports on State of the Environment published in A 5-year cycle.
These reports are targeted at tracking the efficiency of legislation, and are heavily supported by indicators.
An example of an indicaor is the proportion of fishstocks that are fished outside safe biological limits in European seas.
Data for the indicators are provided by Member States (voluntarily through EIONET and Marine Conventions) and International Organizations (FAO).
Using (among others) a suite of indicaotrs, EEA reports on environmental status - also on issues that are not strictly demanded by legislation.
Example of EEA indicator
on total phosphorus in lakes

3. Using indicators in pan-European State of the Environment Freshwater Assessments
Indicators are a main building block of these assessments
Data are needed for annual indicator updates
Data provided through WISE SOE data flows, formerly known as EIONET water data flows
For more information go to

4. Some currently used freshwater indicators
Indicators depend on reasonable pan-European data coverage,
often provided by specific policy requirements.
Examples are:
Nutrient concentrations in rivers, lakes and groundwater,
Hazardous substances in rivers, lakes and groundwaters
New in 2008:
Emissions/pollution loads to water
Water scarcity and drought indicators

5. Why biology now?
Current freshwater indicators only indicate pressures on water bodies
Biological indicators provide info on state and impacts of the pressures
Allows the DPSIR-model as basic approach for the SoE-report 2010

6. What data is requested for rivers and lakes?
Sheet 5: Benthic invertebrates in rivers
Sheet 6: Phytoplankton in lakes
Sheet 7: Macrophytes in lakes

7. Parameter specifications
Reporting sheets specifying parameters and methods of aggregation are included in the WISE SoE guidance
For full report see:
Requested information for representative stations in selected water bodies
National EQR values for each BQE (Macroinverts in rivers, phytoplankton and macrophytes in lakes) for 2007 and 2008, if available;
National reference values and EQR class boundaries for each BQE (to be reported only once);
Other data for phytoplankton and macrophytes, according to reporting sheets (chlorophyll, % Cyanobacteria, lower growing depth, % Isoetids or Charaphytes)
Supporting background information
Name of the Index used and ref. to the method,
Some Methodological details to aid interpretation
Type of water body (national type and most similar IC type)
Station info to allow links to pressure data and map production
Some of the relevant background information is already reported as part of the regularly requested WISE-SoE pressure data (nutrients, in particular), but please double check.

8. Treatment of data by country before reporting
Temporal aggregation:
Annual average values of the determinands at representative stations within water bodies are requested.
Spatial aggregation (sites):
ETC prefers disaggregated data at the station level to allow linking to pressure indicators and allowing map production (water body polygons are not yet available in WISE)
If countries do not want to report disaggregated data, then average values for different stations within a water body should be calculated and the data reported as a “representative” station for the water body (with coordinates allowing map production).

9. Standardised format for data reporting: Draft template: xls-file with separate tables
Biology data table
Method and class boundaries (reported only once and if changed)
Station and water body info (reported only once and if changed)

10. Treatment of data by EEA after the reporting
The national EQR values will be translated to normalised EQR values by EEA to allow comparison.
Ref: DG Environment

11. Presentation of indicators by EEA after reporting
1. Summaries of the normalised EQR values grouped into high, good, moderate, poor and bad classes at different spatial scales - regional or subregional, RBDs or type-specific (IC-types)
After some more years of reporting, also:
2. Time series of the normalised EQR values aggregated on regional or sub-regional level in areas where time series are available
3. Proportion of stations within each region or sub-region, for which there are statistically significant increases, decreases and no changes in normalised EQR values over time
Example showing NO3 concentrations in rivers per RBD (data from )

12. Timetable and process Stepwise approach to test feasibility
Request data from countries (test data flow) (May)
Countries reporting period from May-July (2008-data mainly)
EEA ETC analyse the received data (Aug.-Sept.)
EEA/ETC presents results (draft WISE maps and graphs) to Ecostat (and EIONET-group) in October, 2009 for comments
If agreement can be achieved, EEA will establish a regular WISE-SoE data flow starting in 2010.

13. Overview of willingness to participate in test data flow

14. Please provide contact details for freshwater data reporting
Institution and contact person ( -address)
Send to
Deadline: 10th May

15. Finally! ETC welcomes all supporting information such as
National reports
RBMPs (drafts or final)
Will be used to support the EEA indicator development and assessments

16. Thank you for your attention
and support !

17. Monika Peterlin, IWRS Ecostat meeting 20.-21. April 2009, Brussels
ETC Water - Marine Team Test data exchange to support development of a Benthic Invertebrate Fauna indicator for coastal/transitional waters
Monika Peterlin, IWRS
Ecostat meeting April 2009, Brussels

18. Some currently used indicators
Indicators depend on reasonable pan-European data coverage,
often provided by specific policy requirements.
Examples are:
Bathing water quality,
Nutrient and chlorophyll-a concentrations,
Aquaculture production,
Fishing fleet capacity,
Status of marine fish stocks and catches per region
Hazardous substances in marine organisms
Oil discharges from refineries and offshore installations
Accidental oil spills from marine shipping
Example of EEA indicator
on fishing outside safe
biological limits
But the list could be longer!

19. New data request: benthic Invertebrate fauna
EEA and ETC/W would like to add an indicator on benthic invertebrate fauna, based on the work done by Ecostat.
Stepwise approach to test feasibility
Request data from countries (test data flow)
Produce an interpretation of the received data
Present results of interpretation to Ecostat in October, 2009 for comments
If agreement can be achieved, establish a WISE-SoE data flow in 2010.
Need to better understand the possible challenges that we will face in fulfilling our plans in view of difficulties and complexity of the IC process.

20. Reporting sheet on Benthic Invertebrate fauna
Reporting sheet is expected to eventually be added to catalogue of WISE SoE reporting sheets.
For full report see:
Requested information
National EQR values for benthic invertebrate fauna indexes;
National EQR class boundaries for natural CT water bodies;
Supporting background information
Name of the Index used and ref. to the method,
Some Methodological details to aid interpretation.
All relevant background information is assumed to be already reported as part of the already requested WISE-SoE data, but please double check.

21. Treatment of data by country before reporting
Temporal aggregation:
Annual average values of the determinands for each of the C/T WB are requested.
Spatial aggregation (sites):
In case that multihabitat metrics (such as Benthic Ecosystem Quality Index – BEQI) is used for assessment, water body specific values are requested.
EQR for monitoring sites within each WB or
for each WB the representative station should be selected, aggregated results for entire WB

22. Finally!
We are very interested in receiving supporting information such as
reports
river basin management plans
Will be used to support the EEA indicator development
Photo from Orth e tal., 2006, BioScience 987

23. Thank you for your attention
and support !