Intercalibrating the national classifications of ecological status for very large rivers in Europe: Biological Quality Element: Phytoplankton

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires the national classifications of good ecological status to be harmonised through an intercalibration exercise. In this exercise, significant differences in status classification among Member States are harmonized by comparing and, if necessary, adjusting the good status boundaries of the national assessment methods. Intercalibration is performed for rivers, lakes, coastal and transitional waters, focusing on selected types of water bodies (intercalibration types), anthropogenic pressures and Biological Quality Elements. Intercalibration exercises were carried out in Geographical Intercalibration Groups - larger geographical units including Member States with similar water body types - and followed the procedure described in the WFD Common Implementation Strategy Guidance document on the intercalibration process (European Commission, 2011). The Technical reports are organized in volumes according to the water category (rivers, lakes, coastal and transitional waters), Biological Quality Element and Geographical Intercalibration group. This volume addresses the intercalibration of the Very large river Phytoplankton ecological assessment methods. Thirteen countries (Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia) participated in the intercalibration exercise and harmonised their benthic invertebrate assessment systems. The results were approved by the WG ECOSTAT and included in the EC Decision on intercalibration (European Commission, 2018). In addition, four countries (Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden) provided justification for excluding Phytoplankton BQE assessment system.JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resource

Water Framework Directive Intercalibration Technical Report: Lake Phytobenthos ecological assessment methods

One of the key actions identified by the Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) is to develop ecological assessment tools and carry out a European intercalibration (IC) exercise. The aim of the Intercalibration is to ensure that the values assigned by each Member State to the good ecological class boundaries are consistent with the Directive’s generic description of these boundaries and comparable to the boundaries proposed by other MS. In total, 83 lake assessment methods were submitted for the 2nd phase of the WFD intercalibration (2008-2012) and 62 intercalibrated and included in the EC Decision on Intercalibration (EC 2013). The intercalibration was carried out in the 13 Lake Geographical Intercalibration Groups according to the ecoregion and biological quality element. In this report we describe how the intercalibration exercise has been carried out in the cross-GIG Lake Phytobenthos group.JRC.H.1-Water Resource

Comparing aspirations: intercalibration of ecological status concepts across European lakes for littoral diatoms.

Eleven countries participated in an intercalibration exercise to harmonise diatom-based methods used for status assessment in lakes. Participating countries extended from Sweden and Finland in the north to Italy and Slovenia in the south, and from Ireland in the west to Hungary in the east. Intercalibration followed standard procedures developed for the European Commission which ensures that outcomes of this exercise are compatible with those for other types of biota in both freshwater and marine water bodies throughout Europe. Lakes were divided into low, medium and high alkalinity types for this exercise. However, it was not possible to perform a full intercalibration on the low alkalinity lakes due to the short gradient length and confounding influences of pH and humic substances. Values of the Trophie Index of Rott et al. (1999) were computed for all samples in order that national datasets could all be expressed on a common scale. Not all participating countries had reference sites against which national methods could be standardised and, therefore, a Generalised Linear Modelling approach was used to control the effect of national differences in datasets. These steps enabled the position of high/good and good/moderate status boundaries for all participating countries to be expressed on a common scale and for deviations beyond 0.25 class widths ( 0.05 Ecological Quality Radio (EQR) units, assuming equal distances between all class boundaries) to be identified. Those countries which had relaxed boundaries were required to adjust these to within 0.25 class widths whilst the intercalibration rules allowed those countries with more stringent boundaries to retain these. Despite biogeographical and typological differences between participating countries, there was broad agreement on the characteristics of high, good and moderate status diatom assemblages, and the intercalibration exercise has ensured a consistent application of Water Framework Directive assessments around Europe.JRC.H.1-Water Resource