1. GROUNDWATER MONITORING FOR THE WFD UK approach
Tony Marsland & Rob Ward - Environment Agency (E & W)
Jean Clews (Scottish Environment Protection Agency)

2. REQUIREMENTS OF THE WATER FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE WFD MONITORING NETWORK
Article 8(1)
“MS shall ensure the establishment of programmes for monitoring…”. For groundwater these will cover quantitative and chemical status and for protected areas these programmes will be supplemented by specifications laid in establishing legislation.
Article 7(1)
MS shall identify Drinking Water Protected Areas and monitor bodies that “provide more than 100 m3/day (as an average)” and “in accordance with Annex V”
Slide 1
Annex V (2.2.1 and 2.4.1)
“The GW monitoring network shall be established in accordance with the requirements of Articles 7 and 8” - reliable assessment of status and trends.
Non Art 7 & 8 Monitoring
Defensive/compliance monitoring
Investigative monitoring
Habitats Directive
Nitrates Directive
Other UK/International obligations
WFD MONITORING NETWORK

3. WFD MONITORING PROGRAMMES AND OBJECTIVES WFD MONITORING NETWORK
Slide 1
Chemistry
Quantitative Monitoring
Surveillance Monitoring
Operational Monitoring
Drinking Water Protected Area Monitoring
Water level
Validate the risk assessments undertaken during characterisation
Confirm water body Status
Assess Trends
Assess compliance with Drinking Water Protected Area Objectives

4. MONITORING PROGRAMME - PRINCIPLES
Based on conceptual understanding of groundwater bodies at regional and local scales;
Monitoring proportional to difficulty in assessing (a) status (b) adverse trends and (c) effectiveness of Programmes of Measures (including Drinking Water Protected Areas).
Need to consider local factors;
Programme should be integrated, e.g. surface water quality/flow can be indicative of groundwater body status in certain environments;
Representative monitoring;
Diverse range of aquifers in UK requires different approaches for both chemical and quantitative monitoring.

5. DESIGN CONSTRAINTS
Huge variety of aquifer types and therefore hydrogeological situations:
Precambrian to Quaternary aquifers;
intergranular, fissure, karst, dual flow;
Most drinking water taken from depth ( m) - few shallow aquifers exploited for this purpose (but variable around UK);
Layered, heterogeneous aquifers with complex 3-D relationships.
Groundwater vulnerability and pressures also highly variable;
Cannot be prescriptive about design and meet objectives;
regular spatial networks would not be cost effective or deliver necessary data.
Performance criteria linked to monitoring objectives.

6. NETWORK DESIGN Guided by the:
WFD objectives relevant to the body purpose of monitoring;
characteristics of the groundwater body results of characterisation process;
level of understanding confidence in the conceptual model;
the range and extent of pressures on the body perceived level of risk (focus on “at risk” bodies);
confidence in the risk assessment data quality;
grouping of bodies, particularly where risks are low.

7. EXAMPLE OF QUALITY NETWORK DESIGN
General criteria address diffuse/combined impacts and local criteria more discrete issues ;
Monitoring sites must be representative.

8. PARAMETER SELECTION Core parameters
WFD mandatory parameters, key indicators and parameters for Quality Assurance;
Selective parameters
groups of parameters representative of land use/pressures;
broad land use/cover categories used as a starting point;
refined by output from risk assessment/characterisation and local knowledge;
regular review.
Quantitative
water levels, spring and surface water flows.
Considering how we might use other indicators.

9. SELECTION OF MONITORING PARAMETERS
Surveillance monitoring
core + occasional selective for validation of risk assessments.
Operational monitoring
core + selective at sites in groundwater bodies “at risk”;
for diffuse/widespread impacts at all monitoring sites;
for point sources targeted monitoring.
No difference in networks just how operated and data used.
Drinking Water Protected Areas
as for surveillance and operational monitoring but focus on parameters that are driving any treatment of the water.

10. MONITORING FREQUENCY
Risk-based - considers aquifer and pressure characteristics;
Surveillance
ranges from quarterly (fast flow systems) to every 6 years (deeply confined and slow flow);
Operational
ranges from quarterly to annually;
more frequent where impacts are intermittent;
Quantitative
range from monthly (usual) to quarterly.

11. GROUNDWATER QUALITY MONITORING NETWORK
Focussed on water supply aquifers but is being modified to take account of WFD;
Extension planned for aquifers now defined under WFD, e.g Wales;
Planned numbers of sites:
Scotland ~ 400
England & Wales ~ 3500
N. Ireland ~ 120
Wales
England
Scotland
N. Ireland

12. Thank You