River GIGs: Future intercalibration needs/plans Presented by Wouter van de Bund Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability

Intercalibration status – River GIGs green – finalised results; red – not completed in current exercise Macroinvertebrates completed Phytobenthos completed for most GIGs Macrophytes and Fish in progress Horizontal open issues: RC setting Large rivers

River Intercalibration planning meetng – Lissabon 15-16 January 2008 Participants: lead persons and steering group members of all river GIGs for all QE Purpose of the meeting: identification of open issues and making proposals how to address them By quality element Horizontal issues Minutes distributed to ECOSTAT

Macroinvertebrates Common open issues: GIG specific issues: how to deal with new and updated methods reference conditions intercalibrating methods aimed to detect effects of hydromorphological pressures large rivers GIG specific issues: NO, CB GIG: Acidification In progress in NO; CB GIG will draw from NO experience EC GIG: Applying results to all MS (EC GIG) New GIG lead: CZ Anticipate problems with funding of the work

Phytobenthos Limitations of the current results: RC and boundary setting comparability could be improved Combining phytobenthos result with macrophyte results at QE level (‘official’ QE is phytobenthos AND macrophytes)

Fish Work ongoing following the agreed plan

Macrophytes Work in CB GIG ongoing following the agreed plan (meeting next week) Other GIGs: macrophyte IC not started yet Will wait for CB work to be completed (2008) Will make plans taking advantage from CB experiences

Horizontal issues: IC methodology Need to consolidate and publish the IC methodology: Papers in scientific literature by QE in preparation Step-by-step instructions for new and updated methods (as required in Guidelines) in preparation

Horizontal issues: Reference conditions General agreement (in IC reports) that RC setting can and should be improved First need to consolidate current state of work 3-step plan: Stabilize the concepts Harmonize the criteria (QE, GIGs) Quantify the thresholds : search of "no effect" thresholds (this requires data analysis – we need concrete examples / case studies Proposal that GIG leads/steering group produce two discussion papers during the spring as a concrete starting point of work in the GIGs (lead: J.-G. Wasson, FR)

Proposed way forward GIGs need to update the planning sheets according to the outcome of the discussions (mostly minor) If the proposed apprach is agreed by ECOSTAT, the GIG leads/steering group will proceed producing the papers as proposed during the spring Large river expert meeting (involving all MS/GIGs) planned for this autumn to discuss the way forward JRC will ask to (re)confirm the MS nominations for the various river GIG groups (some of the lists are outdated)