Working Group A Ecological Status - ECOSTAT WFD CIS Strategic Coordination Group meeting, 22 Febraury 2006 Progress Report

Outline Current Progress in intercalibration Plans for finalisation of the current intercalibration exercise; Start of the ECOSTAT harmonisation activity; Hydromorphology activity: GEP of HMWB;

Current Progress in intercalibration

Intercalibration timetable Milestone 5 report - Mid-February 2006 To be reported to ECOSTAT meeting 15-16 March MI5 Summary overview in March: Final report in June 2006; All GIG reports available at: http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/jrc/jrc_eewai/library

Milestone 5 – Feb. 2006 Questionnaire sent out on January 20: Overview of participation of MS; Confirmation of QE that will be intercalibrated; Re-iteration of Boundary setting procedure; First overview of Standardization needs; Update on work needed for additional QE; Currently only few responses received; Replies expected by the end of February;

Organisation of the GIGs Status in participation?

1 –involvement of countries in GIGs (green– all countries involved; yellow - most (> 50%) countries involved; RIVERS LAKES COAST Mediterranean Central/ Baltic NE Atlantic Alpine Baltic Sea Eastern Continental Atlantic Black Sea Northern -------------              

Involvement of countries in GIGs General problems: Problems with resourses -> no participation or minimum contribution; Frequent changes in contact persons - problem for the continuity of the work; Lack of authorisation: experts cannot commit to provide the opinion of MS; Lack of provision of data: MS experts are not able to provide criteria/ values for reference conditions, nor provisional class boundaries;

Key take-home message (1) Intercalibration is about comparing and harmonising MS views on good status class boundaries (bottom-up approach); No clear MS views  no intercalibration MS need to participate in GIG-work to provide their views of reference conditions and boundaries if not possible, IC will proceed btw those countries that participate (e.g. provide data & opinions) others following are expected to harmonise their boundaries with the published outcome, when possible;

2. Scope and expected outcome of the intercalibration exercise

Scope of the work – main points Strong focus on few quality elements and/ or single parameters within QE Rivers: benthic invertebrates Lakes: phytoplankton / chlorophyll a (biomass) Coastal: chlorophyll, benthic invertebrates (NEA) Also other QE are addressed in most GIGs, but boundary setting will not yet be possible; Some GIGs will benefit of the RTD results of REBECCA which will be ready in few months; Many of the national methods are still in development, and will not be ready in 2006;

Finalisation of the current intercalibration exercise

Next steps and Reporting 2004 2005 2006 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 GIG milestones M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 Steering Group Summarise GIG progress reports and prepare WG meetings WG2A X SCG Regular progress reports IC Report D1 D2 F Translation, Committee agreement Tasks for the remaining 4 months Summarizing Milestone 5 Reporting Milestone 6 Final Intercalibration report (June 06) Planning of the continuation

INTERCALIBRATION REPORT First draft: Milestone 6 report in May 2006 - GIGs fill in directly into a template

Key issues (2) GIGs have started to work on boundary setting, but this seems to be more difficult and to take more time than anticipated; Intercalibration only for limited quality element / pressure combinations, due to significant gaps in methods & data; Overview of gaps: ECOSTAT (March); Plan for continuation to SCG/ WFD Committee in May;

Start of the ECOSTAT Harmonisation activity

Workshop on Biological and Ecological Methods in Support of the WFD, Jan-06 To establish an active drafting group between GIGs, ECOSTAT, CEN and DG-ENV; To identify and prioritize WFD relevant methods for standardization; The information from the workshop and GIGs (MI5) will be presented to ECOSTAT meeting in March; On the basis of this background information and the discussions at the ECOSTAT, the Harmonisation Group leaders will prepare a draft proposal for the WFD Committee (end of March); After consultation of ECOSTAT (& expert networks in MS) the proposal will be presented to the WFD Committee in May; Further refinement of the document can be expected after the interaction with SCG, Committee and CEN meeting in June;

Hydromorphology activity: Paper on a pragmatic approach on the definition of good ecological potential (GEP) of HMWB’s

Paper on Mitigation measures for HMWB’s (1) Need a practical approach to ensure that process can be delivered on time; Proposal that GEP is not a “stand alone” objective but is defined by the mitigation measures compatible with the use; A stepwise approach is thus proposed: Identify all mitigation measures which do not have a significant adverse effect on use; Exclude measures which would cause only a slight change in the biological quality elements; Define GEP on the basis of reduced list of measures; Estimate MEP on the basis of all mitigation measures;

Paper on Mitigation measures for HMWB’s (2) Site-specific application would involve assessing the effectiveness of measures at the site. MEP would be defined taking into account all measures which would have an effect to reach the desired ecological status; For definition of GEP, measures that have only have a slight ecological benefit would be excluded; Proposal that any measures which are disproportionately expensive at a site/sector level, may be eligible for exemption (Article 4(4&5)); Discussion paper presented at the next ECOSTAT meeting;

Thank You!