1. EEA State of Water assessment and EU water policy context

1. EEA State of Water assessment and EU water policy context

Key messages

  • The Water Framework Directive requires EU Member States to achieve good status in all bodies of surface water and groundwater, in principle by 2015. Achieving good status involves meeting certain standards for the ecology, chemistry, and quantity of waters.

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  • The data reported for the second River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) show that the quantity and quality of available evidence on status and pressures has grown significantly due to significant investments by Member States in monitoring and assessment. As an indication, surface waters and groundwaters have been monitored at over 130 000 monitoring sites over the past six years.

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  • This has resulted in markedly improved RBMPs, providing a better understanding of the ecological, chemical and quantitative status, the pressures causing failure to achieve good status, and the required measures.

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  • The EU Member States have reported status and pressures for 13 400 groundwater bodies and 111 000 surface water bodies: 80 % of them are rivers, 16 % lakes and 4 % coastal and transitional waters.

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  • The delineation of about 90 % of the surface water bodies were unchanged from the first to the second RBMPs. Around 70 % of the groundwater bodies (by area) were not changed.

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  • The results in this report present a European overview of the data reported by the second RBMPs and the status and pressures affecting Europe's waters. Caution is needed when comparing results between Member States and between first and second RBMPs, as the results can be significantly affected by the methodology applied by individual Member States.

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1.1 Background

The main aim of the European Union’s (EU) water policy is to ensure that a sufficient quantity of good quality water is available for people's needs and for the environment. Since the first water directives in the 1970s the EU has worked to create an effective and coherent water policy. The Water Framework Directive (WFD)[1], which came into force in 2000, establishes a framework for the assessment, management, protection and improvement of the quality of water resources across the EU. In addition, objectives for water from the European Union's 7th Environment Action Program (7th EAP)[2], together with those from its Biodiversity Strategy 2020 and the 'Blueprint to safeguard Europe's water resources', are key components to maintain and improve the essential functions of Europe's water-related ecosystems including coastal and marine areas, and to ensure they are well managed.

Since December 2015, EU Member States have been publishing the second River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) for achieving the environmental objectives of the WFD. They are an update of the first RBMPs, which were published in 2009. In 2018, the European Commission will publish its report on the assessment of the second RBMPs. The Commission has also started the process of evaluating the Water Framework Directive[3], with the publication of the Roadmap for the Fitness Check on the Water Framework Directive and the Floods Directive[4]. To accompany and inform this process and to fulfil the requirement of WFD Article 18[5], the EEA has produced this report on the 'State of Europe's water' along with presentation of more detailed WFD results in WISE.

The report aims to present results on:

  • What is the status of EU waters based on the second RBMPs?
  • Which pressures are causing less than good status?
  • What progress has been achieved during the first RBMP cycle (2009-2015)?

The report presents results on the status of surface waters and groundwater in Europe, providing overviews at EU level, Member State and River Basin Districts (RBDs).

Chapter 1 introduces the EU water policy context and sets the frame for the state of water assessments. It addresses the data sources and geographical scope of the report, provides an overview of water bodies, as well as heavily modified and artificial water bodies. The chapter also describes the specific challenges of comparing the data from the first and the second RBMP and the constraints that need to be taken into account.

Chapter 2 to 5 deal with the status assessments of surface waters (ecological status and chemical status) and of groundwater (chemical status and quantitative status). These chapters follow a common narrative. Each chapter introduces the particular status assessment, describes the status of EU waters in second RBMPs, looks into the pressures that are causing less than good status and then compares the status in the first and second RBMPs.

Chapter 6 brings the results together in an analysis of drivers, pressures and impacts and provides an overview of the improvements achieved since the first RBMPs. It addresses the main pressures responsible for not (yet) achieving good status in all European waters. The chapter discusses in more detail pollution from point and diffuse sources and its relationship to water quality, and how habitats have been altered and hydrology modified due to water abstraction. The chapter concludes with an outlook into the future: What will be status in 2021, 2017 and beyond? and challenges in water management.

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Assessing status of water

EU Member States should aim to achieve good status in all bodies of surface water and groundwater by 2015 unless there are grounds for derogation. Only in this case may achievement of good status be extended to 2021 or by 2027 at the latest. Achieving good status involves meeting certain standards for the ecology, chemistry and quantity of waters. In general, 'good status' means that water shows only a slight change from what would normally be expected under undisturbed conditions. There is also a general 'no deterioration' provision to prevent deterioration in status. An overview of assessment the status of surface waters and groundwater according to the WFD is illustrated in figure 1.1.

Ecological status of the WFD assesses ecosystem health expressed by biological quality elements: phytoplankton, macrophytes, phytobenthos, benthic invertebrate fauna, and fish, supported by hydromorphological and physico-chemical parameters: nutrients, oxygen condition, temperature, transparency, salinity, and river basin specific pollutants (RBSPs). The Directive specifies which elements are to be assessed for each water category, and requires that all biological elements and supporting quality elements achieve at least good status.

The WFD aims to ensure good chemical status of both surface water and groundwater bodies across Europe. For surface waters, this goal is defined by limits on the concentration of certain pollutants relevant across the EU, known as priority substances. Good chemical status means that the concentrations of all priority substances do not exceed the environmental quality standards (EQS) established in the Environmental Quality Standards Directive 2008/105/EC and amended by the Priority Substances Directive 2013/39/EU[6]. EQS are set to protect the most sensitive species, including humans via secondary poisoning.

Good groundwater chemical status is achieved when there is no saline intrusion in the groundwater body, when concentrations of specified substances do not exceed relevant standards, and does not result in failure to achieve good status of associated surface water bodies, nor cause significant damage to terrestrial ecosystems which depend directly on the groundwater body[7].

Figure 1.1. Assessment of status of surface waters and groundwater according to the WFD

Good groundwater quantitative status is achieved by ensuring that the available groundwater resource is not exceeded by the long-term annual average rate of abstraction[8]. Accordingly, the level of groundwater may not lead to any diminution of ecological status of connected surface waters or any diminution of groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems. Furthermore, reversals of flow direction may not result in saline or other intrusions. 

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Status classification up to 2012/13

The second RBMPs generally show status classification up to 2012/13 and at that time, many measures were only in the process of implementation. With this in mind, the impact of the measures from the first RBMPs may be expected to be small. It takes time to turn plans into changes on the ground. It also takes time for changes on the ground to come through in monitoring results. This is partly due to lag times in the recovery of plant and animal communities and groundwater response times and partly because some status assessments are based on combining monitoring results collected over a number of years.

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Significant pressures and impacts

Europe's waters are affected by several pressures, including water pollution, water scarcity, droughts and floods. Major physical modifications to water bodies also affect morphology and water flow.

The WFD requires the identification of significant pressures from point sources of pollution, diffuse sources of pollution, modifications of flow regimes through abstractions or regulation and morphological alterations, as well as any other pressures. ‘Significant’ is interpreted as meaning that the pressure contributes to an impact that may result in the failing of Article 4(1) Environmental Objectives (of not having at least good status or potential).

The identification of significant pressures and their resulting impacts (which in turn lead to a reduced status) can involve different approaches: field surveys, inventories, numerical tools (e.g. modelling), expert judgement or a combination of tools.

Figure 1.2. For water bodies in less than good status the significant pressures and pollutants should be identified.

By now, many of the several thousand individual measures in the first RBMPs are completed. However, some measures are not fully completed yet mainly due to funding constraints, while other measures have been difficult to implement.

Further and detailed information on WFD and second RBMPs

·         European Commissions homepage on WFD Link

·         Main reports on progress in the implementation of the WFD since the adoption of the first River Basin Management Plans <a web page with overview of relevant Commission, JRC and EEA reports on implementation of WFD> Commissions WFD reports Link; JRC and EEA

·         Overview of RBMPs LinkLink2.

Further and detailed information on assessing status of waters is available in

·         Commissions Water Notes Link

·         CIS guidance documents Link

·         WFD reporting guidance CIS Guidance No. 21; EC, 2009; and 2016 see http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/help/WFD/WFD_521_2016

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1.2 Data sources, geographical coverage, and methodology

This report is compiled from information on the status of European surface water and groundwater bodies as reported by the EU Member States into the Water Information System for Europe (WISE). In summer 2017, 25 Member States had reported into WISE. The WISE-WFD database includes data from the first and second RBMPs. The reporting of WFD data is based on the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) Reporting Guidance, which has been revised in 2016[9].

The implementation of the WFD has resulted in the designation of 180 RBDs across the EU, and 31 international RBDs. RBMPs have been produced for all the RBDs. Each of the RBMPs consists of many different documents, maps and datasets. The main RBMP document that often is 200-300 pages long provides detailed information on status and pressures affecting the designated water bodies, monitoring programmes and the Programme of Measures to be implemented during the new management cycle. In addition, RBMPs often include several appendixes and in some cases, Member States have established interactive map services or information systems to provide detailed information for the individual water bodies.

This report only presents key results, while more detailed WFD results are presented in an interactive tool in WISE. The following chapters include small text boxes with links to more detailed information (see examples below)

Further and detailed information on delineation of RBDs and water bodies is in WISE

·         Surface water bodies: Number and Size; Number or Size, by Category

·         Groundwater bodies: Number and Size

 

The WISE visualisation tool is being further developed during the consultation period, and updated versions of some of the tables and graphs will be produced. EEA will regularly upload two files (one with links to tables and one with links to graphs) to the consultation folder.  

https://forum.eionet.europa.eu/nrc-eionet-freshwater/library/2018-state-water-consultation-1

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Surface water and groundwater bodies

In the context of the WFD, the 'water environment' includes rivers, lakes, transitional waters, groundwater and coastal waters out to one nautical mile (12 nautical miles for chemical status (i.e. territorial waters). These waters are divided into units called water bodies.

The EU Member States now have reported 13 400 groundwater bodies and 111 000 surface water bodies: 80 % of them are rivers, 16 % lakes and 4 % coastal and transitional waters (Table 1.1). All Member States have reported river and groundwater bodies. 23 Member States (all reporting Member States except Luxemburg and Slovakia) have reported lake water bodies, 14 Member States have reported transitional water bodies and 20 reported coastal water bodies. In the second RBMPs seven Member States have delineated 46 territorial waters i.e. water bodies from 1-12 nautical mile.

The number of water bodies varies considerably between Member States due to the size of their territory but also due to their approach to delineate water bodies. Sweden has by far the largest number of surface water bodies, followed by France, Germany, United Kingdom and Italy. Sweden and Finland show the highest number of lake water bodies. Coastal water bodies are the most numerous in Italy, Sweden and United Kingdom.

A similar disparity can be seen for groundwater bodies. France reported 30 % of the total groundwater area in the EU, and Germany and Spain 9 % each. Groundwater bodies can occur in different horizons, and some groundwater bodies overlay others. The average size of groundwater bodies also differs significantly. In Sweden and Finland, the average area is 7 km2, while in the other Member States the average area is nearly 700 km2.

Some Member States have re-delineated some of their water bodies for the second RBMPs. About 90 % of the surface water bodies are unchanged from the first to the second RBMPs. About 10 % have either been deleted, markedly modified (split or aggregated) or newly created. In most of countries, there were only minor changes in number and length/area of surface water bodies but in some Member States water body delineation has been completely revised and replaced by new groundwater surface water bodies. 

The area of reported groundwater bodies was nearly the same for the first and the second RBMPs.  Around 70 % of the groundwater bodies (by area) were not changed, while 29 % of the groundwater bodies from the first RBMPs were deleted and replaced by new groundwater bodies.

In the comparison of results from the first and second RBMPs EEA has in general only compared those water bodies that are unchanged or have only minor changes that do not hamper the comparison. For water bodies that have been deleted, aggregated, split or newly created, a comparison is not possible.

 

Further and detailed information on delineation of RBDs and water bodies is available in WISE:

·         Map RBMPs and relevant RBD statistics (update of 2012 map)

·         Surface water bodies: Number and Size; Number or Size, by Category

·         Groundwater bodies: Number and Size

·         Comparison of delineation of water bodies first and second RBMP: surface water bodies*

·         WISEevolutiontype – change in delineation of WBs: surface water bodies Link (details Link) and groundwater bodies Link (details Link)

·         CIS Guidance Document No. 2: Identification of Water Bodies Link

* draft dashboards;

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Designation of heavily modified and artificial water bodies

In the case of water bodies that have undergone hydromorphological alteration, the WFD allows Member States to designate some of their surface waters as Heavily Modified Water Bodies (HMWBs) or Artificial Water Bodies (AWBs).

In many river basins, the upper stretches in mountainous areas, highland areas, and often in forest areas remain largely in their natural state except when hydropower and irrigation reservoirs have changed the system. However, lower stretches, often passing large cities and intensive agricultural land, are modified by embankments and other public works. These areas are usually designated as heavily modified waters. Other examples of heavily modified water bodies are rivers with flood defenses, inland waterways, and reservoirs on rivers, or lakes. Heavily modified transitional and coastal water have often been altered by land reclamation or dredging due to urban, transport, and agricultural developments.

Overall, 17 % of European water bodies were designated as HMWBs (13 %) or AWBs (4 %) during the second RBMPs. Around 30 % of the transitional water bodies were designated as heavily modified and 14 % and 10 % of the river and lake water bodies, respectively.

Artificial water bodies can include canals, reservoirs or open-cast mining lakes. More than 6 % of lakes and around 4 % of river water bodies have been identified as artificial. However, only a few of the transitional and coastal waters are listed as being AWBs.

The main reasons for designating European water bodies as heavily modified are land drainage, urban infrastructure, agriculture, but also water regulation and flood protections.

Further and detailed information on designation of natural, heavily modified and artificial water bodies is available in WISE:

·         Designation of natural, heavily modified and artificial water bodies, Number or Size, by Category and Type

·         HMWB physical alterations Table*

·         HMWB water uses Table*

·         CIS Guidance Document Heavily modified water bodies – HMWB Link

* draft dashboards;

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Improvements in monitoring and assessment

The data reported for the second RBMPs shows that the quantity and quality of available evidence on status and pressures has grown significantly due to significant investments into monitoring and assessment. This has resulted in markedly improved RBMPs providing a better understanding of the status (ecological, chemical and quantitative status), the pressures causing failure to achieve good status, and the needed measures.

Surface waters and groundwater have been monitored at over 130 000 monitoring sites over the past six years (Table 1.2). The number of surface water monitoring sites, quality elements and pollutants assessed have increased relative to the first management cycle (see following status chapters).

There is a marked reduction in unknowns and improved confidence in assessment in the second RBMPs. For surface water bodies the proportion in unknown ecological status and chemical status fell from 16 % to 4 % and from 39 % to 16 %, respectively, while for groundwater bodies, the proportion in unknown chemical status and quantitative status decreased to only 1 %.

The confidence in the status assessments[10] has also improved. In the first RBMPs Member States reported fewer than one third of surface water bodies' ecological status with high or medium confidence, while in the second RBMPs this has improved to half of the water bodies. The confidence in surface water body chemical status is relatively low compared to the other status assessments, with only 41 % of the water bodies in the second RBMPs having high or medium confidence. The confidence in groundwater chemical and quantitative status assessments is good with two thirds of the water bodies having high or medium confidence.

Higher confidence is also ensured through intercalibration[11] of ecological status with the number of intercalibrated biological assessment methods that has generally increased three-fold since 2008 making results much more comparable than for the first RBMPs (see chapter 2).

Further and detailed information on monitoring and assessment is available in WISE:

·         Overview of monitoring statistics – (Table & maps)

·         Ecological status - Monitoring sites Tables* & Monitored water bodies Tables* & percentage of classified water bodies using different quality elements. (missing – see Figure 2.1)

·         Quality elements – monitored, grouping or expert judgement Table* - Graph*

·         RBSPs (pollutants monitored, threshold values) (missing)

·         SWB Chemical status - (2nd RBMP) Monitoring sites, by purposeMS*, CategoryPurposeEU*, categoryPurposeMS* (2nd RBMP) Monitored water bodies purposeMS*, CategoryPurposeEU*, categoryPurposeMS*

·         Groundwater monitoring (missing)

·         Surface water bodies: unknown ecological status and unknown chemical status

·         Groundwater unknown GW chemical status and GW quantitative status

·         Confidence in: ecological status assessment Table and Graph*; SWB chemical status assessment Table and Graph*; GW chemical status assessment Table and Graph* and GW quantitative status assessment Table and Graph*

·         CIS Guidance Document on monitoring: No. 7: Monitoring; No. 15 Groundwater monitoring; No 19 - Surface water chemical monitoring; and No 25 - Chemical Monitoring of Sediment and Biota Link

* draft dashboards;

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1.3 Assessment methodologies

The results in this report present a European overviews of the data reported by the second RBMPs and the status and pressures affecting Europe's waters. Caution is advised for Member State comparisons and comparison between first and second RBMPs, as the results are affected by the methodological approach used by the individual Member States. The following text describes some issues that may affect the interpretation of results.

Difficulties in assessing change from the first to the second RBMPs

Comparisons between the two RBMPs are difficult for several reasons. Firstly, the WFD Reporting Guidance was significantly revised and extended in 2016. There have been many changes in how Member States implement the Directive, e.g. water body re-delineation and improvement of assessment methods. Some of the issues relevant for the understanding of this report are discussed below.

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Status classification up to 2012/13

The second RBMPs generally show status classification up to 2012/13 and at that time many measures were only in the process of being implemented. Lag times in the recovery of plant and animal communities and groundwater response times can also cause long delays in recovery of status after pressures have been reduced. With this in mind, the impact of the measures from the first RBMPs on the status reported in the second RBMPs may be expected to be small.

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Comparability of overall status assessments

The WFD objectives for all water bodies are expressed as overall good water status, encompassing both chemical and ecological status for surface waters and chemical and quantitative status for groundwater. Each of these status assessments includes a number of quality elements/-determinants. The WFD uses the “one-out-all-out” principle in assessing water bodies (i.e., the worst status of the elements used in the assessment determines the overall status of the water body).

If only the overall status assessment or the aggregated status (ecological and chemical) are used, the progress achieved in some quality elements/determinants may be hidden by the lack of progress in others. This may result in an overly pessimistic view on the progress achieved by WFD implementation, in particular for those Member States, which have more developed, and comprehensive assessment schemes, which include many elements. In some cases, the lack of development of assessment methods in the first cycle, or from incomplete intercalibration may also have made the results from the first RBMPs less confident.

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In this report, the results of the overall ecological and chemical status assessments are supported by the analysis of status assessments at the level of quality elements or individual pollutants. Caution should be made in using the results for Member State comparisons. The Member States’ results depend on the monitoring activities and the number of quality elements used or chemicals assessed. The results have to be interpreted together with the results on confidence in status and the details on quality elements and chemicals and their threshold values.

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Full implementation of standards for chemical status assessment

The Directive 2008/105/EC on Environmental Quality Standards (EQS Directive 2008/105/EC)[12] is fully in force for the second RBMPs and means stricter standards for some priority substances compared to the first RBMPs.  The Directive also requires Member States to report an inventory of emissions, discharges and losses in their second RBMPs.

During our analysis, it has become clear that Member States have used a variety of approaches to determine chemical status, for instance,

  • In how they extrapolate monitoring results. Several Member States (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg and Slovenia), having found that the environmental quality standard for mercury is exceeded in all monitoring samples, have extrapolated the assessment “failing to achieve good” to all surface water bodies.
  • Using different standards for chemical status. According to the WFD2016 reporting guidance, Member States should have reported chemical status for 2015 using the standards laid down in the EQS Directive 2008/105/EC, but some Member States have reported chemical status by using the stricter standards in the 2013 amendment to the Priority Substances Directive.

As regards the Groundwater Directive, the assessment of trends of pollutants in groundwater will be possible for the first time in the second RBMPs, by comparing the monitoring results with the results in the first RBMPs.

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Changes in reporting requirements in 2010 and 2016

Besides the changes mentioned above, reporting of the second RBMPs also brings new elements into play: some due to legislation, which was not fully in force at the time the first RBMPs were adopted; others due to the fact that the second RBMPs can be compared with the first RBMPs, thereby allowing assessments of progress towards objectives.

Some of these new elements relevant for the State of Water assessments are listed below (extract from CIS Reporting Guidance). They provide possibilities for new assessments, but results cannot be compared to first RBMPs.

Text Box 1.1: Key changes in the Reporting Guidance between first and second RBMP

Heavily modified water bodies:

·         Report the water use and type of physical modification, for which the HMWB has been designated.

Pressures and impacts:

·         Use new list of drivers, pressures and impacts common for surface and groundwater.

Ecological status:

·         Provide status information at the more detailed quality element (QE) level (including reference year).

·         Provide information on the change in class since the first RBMP was reported, if available. Changes in class should be reported as consistent (i.e. real) or as due to changes in methodology, e.g. monitoring and/or assessment methods.

·         Report the River Basin Specific Pollutants (RBSP) causing failure.

Surface water chemical status:

·         Report failure of individual substances.

·         Provide a qualitative indication of the confidence in the chemical status assessment.

·         Indicate the substances that have improved from poor to good chemical status since the first RBMP was reported.

·         Indicate if the more stringent EQSs introduced in 2013 for 7 substances change the status of water bodies.

Groundwater chemical status:

·         Report individual substances causing failure to chemical status.

·         Provide a qualitative indication of the confidence in the classification of quantitative and chemical status (optional).

·         Report substances showing exceedance of quality standards or threshold values but not assessed as chemical status failures, i.e. cases in which Article 4(2)c of the GWD apply.

Objectives and exemptions:

·         Report whether the water body is expected to achieve good status in 2015 and if not, by when.

·         Report the drivers behind exemptions at water body level for ecological status and groundwater quantitative status, at substance level for surface water and groundwater chemical status.

 

 Sources/footnotes

[1] EC 2000, Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32000L0060

[2] EC (2014), The 7th Environment Action Programme (EAP). http://ec.europa.eu/environment/action-programme/

[3] WFD article 19, 2. The Commission will review this Directive at the latest 19 years after the date of its entry into force and will propose any necessary amendments to it.

[4] https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/initiatives/ares-2017-5128184_en

[5] WFD Article 18: The EU Commission shall publish a report on the implementation of the directive two years after the Member States have delivered the RBMPs. The report shall include a review of the status of surface water and groundwater in the Community undertaken in coordination with the European Environment Agency (EEA)

[6] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-dangersub/pri_substances.htm

[7] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/groundwater/framework.htm

[8] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/groundwater/framework.htm

[9] CIS Guidance No. 21; EC, 2009; and 2016 see http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/help/WFD/WFD_521_2016

[10] The CIS Reporting Guidance defines confidence as Low = no monitoring data; Medium = limited or insufficiently robust monitoring data; and High = good monitoring data and good understanding of the system.

[11] EC 2008: Water Note 7: Intercalibration: A common scale for Europe's waters http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/participation/pdf/waternotes/water_note7_intercalibration.pdf

[12] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-dangersub/pri_substances.htm

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