EU Water Framework Directive

1. EU Water Framework Directive WFD Article 8 reporting Monitoring programmes Working Group D Reporting Brussels, 31 March 2009 Jorge Rodriguez Romero European Commission, DG Environment Unit D.2 – Water and Marine, WFD Team

2. WISE reporting has been a success but we should improve quality of reporting (and for this we need cooperative action from all parties: MS, COM, EEA…) The purpose of this presentation is to raise some quality issues related to the schema structure and to the MS submissions in order to improve future WISE reporting exercises We will not update the article 8 schemas before the 2010 reporting We will update the documentation for article 8 schemas for those MS willing to update their report in 2010 Before starting

3. WFD requirements Reporting sheets Reporting schemas Basic questions on monitoring: where, what, how and how frequent? Developing reporting contents

4. Reporting sheets SWM 1: Summary of the Surface Water Monitoring Programmes (surveillance and operational) SWM 2: Surface Water Investigative Monitoring Programme GWM 1: Summary of Monitoring Programme for Groundwater (Quantitative and Chemical Status) Reporting schemas Monitoring programmes Surface water monitoring stations Groundwater monitoring stations Reporting sheets and schemas article 8 monitoring programmes

5. Monitoring methods Programmes (surveillance/operational) Sub-programmes (water category specific) Design considerations Number of sites in each sub-programme Quality elements and frequency (plus % of sites deviating) Protected areas covered by each programme Investigative programmes Schema contents Monitoring programmes Monitoring stations • List of stations • Geographical coordinates • Water body code • Sub-programme code • Surveillance / operational • Quality elements and frequency • Monitoring methods • Other networks • Protected areas Main link

6. Use of programmes / sub-programmes Total ~1700 sub-programmes

7. Use of programmes / sub-programmes • Great diversity of use cases, most common: • Programmes surveillance and/or operational • Sub-programmes water category specific • But large diversity, e.g. • Programmes for specific objectives in the directive or for specific impacts (eutrophication, hazardous substances) • Sub-programmes for combinations of water category and quality element or groups of quality elements • Sub-programmes for the first year and for the rest • Sub-programmes for particular types of water bodies (e.g. small lakes) • In principle, the way the programmes and sub-programmes are structured should not be so important • But in some cases the choices made have as a consequence that it is not possible (or very difficult) to extract the information • E.g. there is no distinction between surveillance and operational monitoring, i.e. it is not possible to know what is monitored in surveillance and what is monitored in operational

8. Monitoring methods Programmes (surveillance/operational) Sub-programmes (water category specific) Design considerations Number of sites in each sub-programme Quality elements and frequency (plus % of sites deviating) Protected areas covered by the programme Investigative programmes Duplication of information (I) Monitoring programmes Monitoring stations • List of stations • Geographical coordinates • Water body code • Sub-programme code • Surveillance / operational • Quality elements and frequency • Monitoring methods • Other networks • Protected areas

9. Monitoring methods Programmes (surveillance/operational) Sub-programmes (water category specific) Design considerations Number of sites in each sub-programme Quality elements and frequency (plus % of sites deviating) Protected areas covered by the programme Investigative programmes Duplication of information (II) Monitoring programmes Monitoring stations • List of stations • Geographical coordinates • Water body code • Sub-programme code • Surveillance / operational • Quality elements and frequency • Monitoring methods • Other networks • Protected areas

10. Monitoring methods Programmes (surveillance/operational) Sub-programmes (water category specific) Design considerations Number of sites in each sub-programme Quality elements and frequency (plus % of sites deviating) Protected areas covered by the programme Investigative programmes Duplication of information (III) Monitoring programmes Monitoring stations • List of stations • Geographical coordinates • Water body code • Sub-programme code • Surveillance / operational • Quality elements and frequency • Monitoring methods • Other networks • Protected areas

11. Most Member States provided information on the quality elements at both monitoring programme AND monitoring station In most cases it appears that the intention has been to provide the same information twice In those cases the level of consistency of the information varies – i.e. some MS provide the same information, some others quite different, and it is not clear which one is correct In one case the information at monitoring station level consists of negative reporting (deviations from the information at programme level) The documentation of the schemas is not clear Duplication of information:source of errors

12. Reporting into WISE has proven a success (24 MS reported into WISE, only 2 paper reports) Improvements needed on quality of reporting. Some make good use of the agreed format, others provided very general information, relied heavily on secondary information or provided inactive web links The desired flexibility in reporting formats has lead to a complicated reporting structure. This has made the systematic assessment quite difficult with many use cases There is need to strike a better balance between flexibility and complexity in the reporting schemas There is a need to improve documentation of the schemas. With the existing documentation it is hardly possible to understand how MS are expected to use the different options to report at different levels Conclusions

13. Bilateral feedback from COM to MS Improve documentation in the schemas for 2010 reporting Streamlining of the article 8 schemas post-2010 Way forward

14. Commission report on article 8 to be published tomorrow