Setting ecological quality class boundaries for the Water Framework Directive: the lake intercalibration network

摘要

The Water Framework Directive (WFD; Anon. 2000) establishes a framework for the protection and sustainable management of all waters in Europe, including inland surface waters, transitional waters, coastal waters and groundwater. Overall, the directive aims at achieving "good water status" for all waters by 2015. The assessment of the ecological status and setting of the practical management goals require several steps. The process has started with the characterisation of the river basins, including identification of surface water bodies and types, and identification of significant anthropogenic pressures and impacts. The water bodies will be classified in five quality classes (high, good, moderate, poor, bad) based on Ecological Quality Ratio (EQR), a ratio between reference conditions and current status using biological indicators. The WFD provides descriptive criteria for high, good, and moderate ecological status that need to be made operational by the Member States. The classification results of the national assessment systems need to be harmonised through the WFD intercalibration (IC) exercise. The IC exercise is carried out by the Member States, and is facilitated by the European Commission. In November 2002, the EC Joint Research Centre, in collaboration with the Directorate General Environment, launched the European Centre for Ecological Water Quality and Intercalibration (EEWAI; http://ies.jrc.cec.eu.int/eewai/) as an organizational body for the scientific and technical coordination of the IC exercise. The long-term objective of EEWAI is to provide a focal point for the further harmonisation of national ecological quality assessment systems in the EU. In the present paper we shortly explain the philosophy of the ongoing IC process and show the practical steps taken so far. We will specially focus on the establishment of the IC register and the lessons learned from the metadata analysis of the draft IC register for lakes.