WG A Ecological Status Progress report April-October 2009

Issues ECOSTAT meeting 1-2 October, Brussels Draft ECOSTAT mandate 2010-2012 ( separate presentation agenda item 8b) Intercalibration Update of the guidance ( separate presenation) Progress of ongoing intercalibration work

Activity 1 – Intercalibration: Progress of ongoing work Work programme 2008-2012 in place; objectives: to coordinate and carry out the technical work of the WFD intercalibration exercise for the water categories, geographical regions and biological quality elements that are not included in the current Commission Decision to address more generic open issues including further harmonization of approaches for setting reference conditions to report the results to the SCG and the WFD Article 21 Committee Ongoing work is following the updated (draft)guidance on the IC process

Activity 1 – Intercalibration: Progress of ongoing work General timetable 2008-2012

Activity 1 – Intercalibration: Progress of ongoing work Reference conditions setting first analysis of technical reports of first IC round: lack of consistency in how criteria for setting RC have been applied analysis is initially focusing on rivers, but will also include other water categories data has been requested from MS to substantiate this analysis recommendations for better consistency RC setting expected spring 2009  Annex to new guidance alternative benchmarks

Activity 1 – Intercalibration: Progress of ongoing work Rivers ‘Milestone 1’ reports from all IC groups on ECOSTAT CIRCA Work ongoing for BQEs that were not completed in first round (macrophytes, fish) Large river group started (coordinated by Germany) Fish: common dataset completed – but some MS are missing  it will be difficult for those MS to intercalibrate their methods in the current timetable!

Activity 1 – Intercalibration: Progress of ongoing work Lakes ‘Milestone 1’ reports from all IC groups on ECOSTAT CIRCA 18 IC groups are now active focus on data collection and analysing MS methods NO GIG acidification group expected to finalise early 2010 Problems: Difficult for MS to cover all groups - lack of participation of some MS National methods are still not finalised in many cases Delay in the work of the EC GIG

Activity 1 – Intercalibration: Progress of ongoing work Coastal/Transitional waters ‘Milestone 1’ reports from all IC groups on ECOSTAT CIRCA New coordinator at JRC: Wendy Bonne Cross-GIG coastal meeting planned for January 2010 Most groups are active and are making good progress Problems: - Some problems with coordination, MS participation, – see progress report Most methods are still under development Reference conditions comparability is problematic and this is being investigated now Difficulties in common dataset development are still an obstacle for more efficient work

The SCG is invited to take note of state of play of the current ECOSTAT activities.