Task on Harmonisation of Freshwater Biological Methods Status Report and Future Steps Presented by Ana Cristina Cardoso Harmonisation Task Team: JRC - AC Cardoso, G Premazzi, A Solimini, S Poikane, F Martinet (FR), ML Serrano (ES), T Rafael (PT), P Hale (CEN), S Birk (STAR project)

Contents of the presentation Background Drafting group meeting Information available Problems with information Future steps

Origin of the Harmonisation Task Requirement from the WFD (Annex V 1.3.6) to make use of standards methods for monitoring of water quality elements River and lake IC expert networks recommendation for harmonisation of the biological monitoring protocols for and possible identification of common metrics Lack of comparability of national biological assessment systems due to incompatibilities at sampling and analytical levels  need for harmonization of these methodologies

ECOSTAT WG2A Meeting 15-17 Oct 2003 Presentation of outline of the initiative on harmonisation of national freshwater biological monitoring systems Agreement from WG to start an harmonisation activity

Objectives Overview of the biological methods currently in use Evaluate applicability in monitoring and assessment of ecological quality as required by the WFD Evaluate applicability as common metrics for the purpose of the IC exercise Identify needs for development of new methods or harmonisation of existing methods (link to CEN)

Harmonisation activity support to the GIGs in the IC process Providing a concise overview of the available and applicable methods Potential candidates for common metrics

Drafting Working group meeting 21-22 June 2004 Agreement of table of contents for the guidance Evaluation of existing information Way forward and timetable

freshwater biological methods Contents of Report on harmonisation of freshwater biological methods 1. Background and purpose of this document 1.1      WFD classification and intercalibration requirements 1.2     Common understanding of ‘common metric’: 1.3   Strengths and weakness of using existing data sets 2. State-of-the-art of biological methods in the EU member countries and CC 2.1  Lakes (JRC) 2.2  Rivers 3. Comparative analysis by EU, GIG 3.1  Lakes 3.2. Rivers

Contents 4. ISO and CEN Methods related to the WFD Existing methods/guidance & standards Methods under development CEN procedure for standard development interaction with ECOSTAT 5. Evaluation of the usefulness of existing methods in relation to the WFD 5.1 Determination EQRs Evaluation within GIGs 5.2  Evaluation their applicability as ‘common metrics’ for intercalibration GIG identification of possible common metrics 5.3  Needs for method development and harmonisation 5.3.1 Ongoing initiatives – WFD compliant methods in development 6. Conclusive remarks and recommendations

Information available IE - Mostly sampling and sample processing procedures but no information on assessment and classification Poland -State that lakes are evaluated through a Lake quality evaluation system where physico-chemical and other elements including chl and phytoplankton are considered but without detailing how.

Biological monitoring systems Sampling/ Surveying, lab processing Metric Classification Intercalibration biological assessment method Harmonisation comparison of biological monitoring systems

Data used for quality assessment IC metadata base of Jan 04

IC metadata base of Jan 04

IC metadata base of Jan 04

IC metadata base of Jan 04

Phytoplankton methods reported in the IC metadata

Problems to achieve goals Information incomplete in terms of countries covered and detail of the information supplied, often insufficient and inconsistent; Currently MS are developing their national biological monitoring systems in compliance with the WFD After decision of the task on harmonisation, the organization of the IC process has changed to be carried out in GIGs. These have initiated discussions to identify common metrics and are expected to report their decisions in Oct 2004

… We believe that the harmonization report will provide a useful tool to MS and GIGs: Identifying the sources of heterogeneity in the methods, particularly at sampling and metric levels Making recommendations for IC Common Metrics for each GIG Establish the link with CEN for development of standard methods

… but we need to have access to sound information on the MS methods to achieve robust conclusions/ recommendations and to provide a useful tool for MS/ GIGs

Invitation to GIGs To check the information on biological methods entered in the electronic web interface for the IC metadata Refine if needed Or We gathered the information on biological methods in excel tables (CIRCA) Need to be checked, corrected and fill in with missing information

River example General information Name biological monitoring system (WFDcompliant) Quality Assessment of Estonian Watercourses using Benthic Macroinvertebrates Waterview database number 87 Country Estonia Pressure Organic pollution, morphological degradation, acidification, toxic substances, eutrophication, general degradation Quality element Benthic invertebrates comment The WFD method is under development Assessment Category of method (as in Waterview) Multimetric index Number of quality classes 5 Sampling Habitat/ microhabitat Riffle, all typical substrate Procedure For 1 minute 1 minute sweep device Handnet Sampling standard (national and/or international National standard/ European standard EN 27 828 Analysis Taxonomy (species, Sp. Groups, genus, family, higher taxonomic level) Abundance/ biomass (units) Abundance (n. individuals/ m2) Notes (free text) Contac person (name and email

Timetable Issue Date 1st draft 21-22 June 2004 Presentation at the WG2A meeting 7-8 July 2004 Request to fill in tables sent to GIG contact persons 15 July Tables returned to JRC 15 September Presentation of results of analysis of collected information in WG2A meeting 7-8 October Draft reported circulated for comments within drafting group and GIGs 5 November Comments returned to JRC 19 November Final report End of November

Harmonisation activity will be possible only with your support Would you like us to continue with it with the current objectives? Will it be in time to be useful?