The concept of integrated expert information system for water management planning in Slovenia

In Slovenia, the system of harmonized data and other information on water and water related areas is being developed as a support tool for water management planning. The system includes verified data and aggregated and logically integrated information on the state of waters in Slovenia, the pressures and impacts on water environments, and their protection. National information evidence and monitoring systems provide the data sources. The concept has been developed by way of a prototype. The system consists of independent data, organized by information themes with the logic of geographic information systems and prepared for browsing with intranet and internet

Analysis of the flood in Ljubljana and on the Ljubljana moor \ud

After the floods that hit Slovenia in September 2010,\ud the Institute for Water of the Republic of Slovenia\ud measured the heights of geodetic points (with the\ud GNSS levelling method) used to determine the\ud height of flood water on the Ljubljana moor and\ud Ljubljana. The heights of these points were controlled\ud by trigonometric levelling with connections to the\ud benchmarks of the city levelling network of Ljubljana.\ud An analysis of the accuracy of determining the heights\ud of the points and the differences between the heights\ud of the points, which were determined by GNSS and\ud trigonometric levelling, are presente

Pomen geodetskih podatkov pri analizah poplav ; The importance of geodetic data in flood analyses

Poplavno vodo matematično modeliramo z uporabo Saint Venantovih enačb, pri čemer je ključen podatek o višini terena in vode. Za dober rezultat potrebujemo dobre in natančne podatke o terenu in višini zabeležene poplavne vode, za katero poznamo pretočne količine. Metode daljinskega zaznavanja dajejo uporabne podatke o terenu in višini poplavne vode. Pazljivost je potrebna pri geolociranju posnetkov in njihovi interpretaciji. Infrardeči (IR) posnetki poplav iz leta 2010 so se izkazali za dobre in uporabne. V članku so prikazani rezultati interpretacije vseh posnetkov ; Floodwater is mathematically modelled with the use of St Venant's equations. The key data is the elevation of water. For better results, accurate information about the terrain and flood water heights recorded with known flow rates is needed. Remote sensing methods provide very useful information for terrain and flood water heights. Care should be taken with geo-referencing and image interpretation. Infrared (IR) images of floods in 2010 have proven to be good and useful for flood management. This article presents the results of interpretation of all the IR images taken

A new broad typology for rivers and lakes in Europe: Development and application for large-scale environmental assessments

European countries have defined >1000 national river types and >400 national lake types to implement the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). In addition, common river and lake types have been defined within regions of Europe for intercalibrating the national classification systems for ecological status of water bodies. However, only a low proportion of national types correspond to these common intercalibration types. This causes uncertainty concerning whether the classification of ecological status is consistent across countries. Therefore, through an extensive dialogue with and data provision from all EU countries, we have developed a generic typology for European rivers and lakes. This new broad typology reflects the natural variability in the most commonly used environmental type descriptors: altitude, size and geology, as well as mean depth for lakes. These broad types capture 60–70% of all national WFD types including almost 80% of all European river and lake water bodies in almost all EU countries and can also be linked to all the common intercalibration types. The typology provides a new framework for large-scale assessments across country borders, as demonstrated with an assessment of ecological status and pressures based on European data from the 2nd set of river basin management plans. The typology can also be used for a variety of other large-scale assessments, such as reviewing and linking the water body types to habitat types under the Habitats Directive and the European Nature Information System (EUNIS), as well as comparing type-specific limit values for nutrients and other supporting quality elements across countries. Thus, the broad typology can build the basis for all scientific outputs of managerial relevance related to water body types

Protecting and restoring Europe's waters:an analysis of the future development needs of the Water Framework Directive

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is a pioneering piece of legislation that aims to protect and enhance aquatic ecosystems and promote sustainable water use across Europe. There is growing concern that the objective of good status, or higher, in all EU waters by 2027 is a long way from being achieved in many countries. Through questionnaire analysis of almost 100 experts, we provide recommendations to enhance WFD monitoring and assessment systems, improve programmes of measures and further integrate with other sectoral policies. Our analysis highlights that there is great potential to enhance assessment schemes through strategic design of monitoring networks and innovation, such as earth observation. New diagnostic tools that use existing WFD monitoring data, but incorporate novel statistical and trait-based approaches could be used more widely to diagnose the cause of deterioration under conditions of multiple pressures and deliver a hierarchy of solutions for more evidence-driven decisions in river basin management. There is also a growing recognition that measures undertaken in river basin management should deliver multiple benefits across sectors, such as reduced flood risk, and there needs to be robust demonstration studies that evaluate these. Continued efforts in ‘mainstreaming’ water policy into other policy sectors is clearly needed to deliver wider success with WFD goals, particularly with agricultural policy. Other key policy areas where a need for stronger integration with water policy was recognised included urban planning (waste water treatment), flooding, climate and energy (hydropower). Having a deadline for attaining the policy objective of good status is important, but even more essential is to have a permanent framework for river basin management that addresses the delays in implementation of measures. This requires a long-term perspective, far beyond the current deadline of 2027

Effects of multiple stressors on cyanobacteria abundance vary with lake type

Blooms of cyanobacteria are a current threat to global water security that is expected to increase in the future because of increasing nutrient enrichment, increasing temperature and extreme precipitation in combination with prolonged drought. However, the responses to multiple stressors, such as those above, are often complex and there is contradictory evidence as to how they may interact. Here we used broad scale data from 494 lakes in central and northern Europe, to assess how cyanobacteria respond to nutrients (phosphorus), temperature and water retention time in different types of lakes. Eight lake types were examined based on factorial combinations of major factors that determine phytoplankton composition and sensitivity to nutrients: alkalinity (low and medium‐high), colour (clear and humic) and mixing intensity (polymictic and stratified). In line with expectations, cyanobacteria increased with temperature and retention time in five of the eight lake types. Temperature effects were greatest in lake types situated at higher latitudes, suggesting that lakes currently not at risk could be affected by warming in the future. However, the sensitivity of cyanobacteria to temperature, retention time and phosphorus varied among lake types highlighting the complex responses of lakes to multiple stressors. For example, in polymictic, medium‐high alkalinity, humic lakes cyanobacteria biovolume was positively explained by retention time and a synergy between TP and temperature while in polymictic, medium‐high alkalinity, clear lakes only retention time was identified as an explanatory variable. These results show that, although climate change will need to be accounted for when managing the risk of cyanobacteria in lakes, a ‘one‐size fits‐all’ approach is not appropriate. When forecasting the response of cyanobacteria to future environmental change, including changes caused by climate and local management, it will be important to take this differential sensitivity of lakes into account

Broad typology for rivers and lakes in Europe for large scale analysis

Typology of waters is defined as a group of water bodies having common natural ecological conditions in terms of geo-morphological, hydrological, physico-chemical, and biological characteristics. The type descriptors are permanent characteristics that do not respond to human activities and represent the fixed abiotic conditions that explain natural variability. For the need of large-scale analysis of ecological status, multiple pressures on rivers and lakes, linkages of water body types to habitat types and for comparison of type-specific limit values for nutrients and other quality elements across countries in Europe, a broad river and lake typology was developed. Descriptors categories are dominant geology, region, river catchment, river altitude, river flow, lake size and mean lake depth. The ranges of descriptors largely follow the system A of Water Framework Directive (WFD) (EC, 2000) and are described in Lyche Solheim et al. (2019). Various European data sources were used for spatial allocation of rivers and lakes broad types. The starting point was the European Catchments and Rivers Network System (Ecrins) (EEA, 2012), which is organised into sets of spatial thematic layers: lake polygons, river segments (drains), nodes representing intersection of river and catchments and almost 180,000 “Functional Elementary Catchments (FECs)”. Catchments include “main drains” (connecting together the FECs) and “secondary drains” (internal within a FEC). We assigned one broad type to all segments belonging to “main drain” of each FEC and named them “river segment". The catchment size of river segments in each FEC is defined as the sum of the upstream drainage area and FEC surface area. The upstream drainage area has been derived using data in “Code Arbo” in Ecrins database (Globevnik et al., 2017). The altitude of the lower end points of river segments in each FEC is available in Ecrins river database. Lake surface area is obtained from Ecrins lake area attribute “Area”. Data on mean lake depth were obtained from Waterbase – Water Quality database (EEA, 2016) or estimated from terrain data. The basic map of five geological (geochemical) categories was produced from two thematic maps: bedrock map “International Hydrogeological Map of Europe (IHME 1500_v11)” (Dutcher et al, 2015) and the soil map of the European Union “SGDBE4” (JRC, 2016). The dominant geology for lakes was derived from this map with the overlay procedure. For each FEC we then defined dominant catchment geology (geochemistry) and assigned this geology type to all river segments forming the FEC's main drain. Spatial extent of the Mediterranean region is obtained from spatial layer 'Biogeographical regions of Europe» (EEA, 2019). More details on methodology are in Lyche Solheim et al. (2019)

The concept of integrated expert information system for water management planning in Slovenia

V Sloveniji se razvija sistem usklajenih podatkov in drugih informacij o vodah in na vodo vezanih elementov. Sistem bo podporno orodje za načrtovanje upravljanja z vodami. Sestavljajo ga preverjeni podatki in agregirane, logično integrirane informacije o stanju voda v Sloveniji, pritiskih in vplivih na vodno okolje in varstva voda. Podatkovni viri so nacionalne podatkovne evidence in sistemi spremljanja stanja. Koncept smo razvili na prototipu. Sestavljen je iz neodvisnih informacijskih tematskih slojev, ki so organizirani po principih geografskih informacijskih sistemov in pripravljeni za brskanje po notranji in zunanji elektronski mreži.In Slovenia, the system of harmonized data and other information on water and water related areas is being developed as a support tool for water management planning. The system includes verified data and aggregated and logically integrated information on the state of waters in Slovenia, the pressures and impacts on water environments, and their protection. National information evidence and monitoring systems provide the data sources. The concept has been developed by way of a prototype. The system consists of independent data, organized by information themes with the logic of geographic information systems and prepared for browsing with intranet and internet