2Link of WFD Assessments with MSFD Reporting

GES_17-2017-06

Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD)
Common Implementation Strategy
17th meeting of the
Working Group on Good Environmental Status (WG GES)
10 March 2017
Conference Centre Albert Borschette, Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Brussels (Room 2/B)
Agenda item: / 5d
Document: / GES_17-2017-06
Title: / Bringing WFD assessments to MSFD reporting
Prepared by: / EuropeanEnvironmentAgency (EEA)/Bilbomática
Date prepared: / 07/03/2017
Background: / According to Article 8 of the MSFD and the revised GES Decision, the WFD assessments should be taken into account. Within the reporting, this can be done with the prefilling of the MSFD reporting schemas with the information coming from the WFD reporting. However, the prefilling can be done at different levels. The current paper addresses the description of these levels.

WG GES is invited to:

1. Consider and decide which level is most appropriate for 2018 reporting.

1Introduction

Article 8 of the MSFD states that the assessments to be done should take into account the elements regarding coastal and territorial waters covered by the Water Framework Directive (WFD). This is further emphasised in the revised GES Decision, where assessments for Descriptors 5 and 8 are to use the assessments undertaken in WFD. The reporting of the update of the River Basin District plans was due in 2016, and therefore the results can be used for MSFD reporting in 2018. In particular, the MSFD reporting schemas could be prefilled with the information on assessments of the coastal water bodies and territorial waters, so that Member States can decide whether to make use of them or not within their MSFD reporting. The different approaches that can be taken regarding the prefilling of the schemas are described in the following sections.

2Link of WFD assessments with MSFD reporting

At the 14th meeting of WG DIKE (1-2 March 2017),a draft reporting guidance for the update of articles 8, 9 and 10 was presented[1]. Chapter 5 (Links to other policy processes), includes how the information of theWater Framework Directive (WFD) assessments would be prefilled according to the proposed schema, so that Member States (MS) can make use of it or not. It states the following:

For WFD, the status classification of the water bodies (and territorial waters in the case of the chemical status) reported at the Quality Element level would be used to populate relevant fields for some D5 and D8 criteria/elements, using the schema ‘MSFD8_1ab_Assessments’. Also, the threshold values from the Intercalibration Decision and from the EQS Directive, as well as for other legislation that may be applicable, will be prefilled for that schema.

On the other hand, all the schemas need to include information of the corresponding Marine Reporting Unit (MRU) to which the reported information applies. A paper was developed regarding a proposal on the development of a layer of agreed MRU at the European scale prior to the reporting and presented in the 13th meeting of WG DIKE[2], and an update on the progress on this work has been presented and discussed in the 14th meeting of WG DIKE[3].

In the case of the WFD, the assessments are done at the water body level. Therefore, the coastal water bodies, as well as the territorial waters (as reported under the WFD) have been suggested to be used as MRUs. However, it is to be noted that the coastal water bodies would most likely only be used as MRU regarding the WFD assessments. Also, information at the WFD water body level may be less useful for MSFD purposes, because the scale is quite detailed compared to the scale used for the rest of the assessments. Therefore, within the discussion, the possibility of bringing the WFD assessments at a certain level of aggregation was proposed.

The following approaches could be used:

1)Aggregation per coastal waters typewithin each River Basin District

2)Aggregation per River Basin District

If MS approve the prefilling of aggregated results, the prefilling of non-aggregated results would also be done, so that traceability can be kept.

Regarding the integration of the WFD assessments for the different quality elements at the water body level and how the results would be brought to the MSFD reporting schemas, it is described in the Annex.

2.1Prefilling for D5

As mentioned above, the results at the water body level could be aggregated at the spatial level into 1) Coastal water types within each River Basin District or2) Coastal waters within each River Basin District.

The results to be prefilled would provide information on the extent to which GES has been achieved for D5. As required in the revised Decision, the results would be provided by percentage of area of coastal waters.

Following with the example of Table 5 (in Annex), examples for the different levels of aggregation areshown in Table 4 (per water types) andTable 5(per River Basin District).

Table 1 Example of aggregation per water types within RBD

RBD-A / Total area of cw / Areaof cw achieving GES / % of area of cwachieving GES
Type I / 25 / 0 / 0
Type II / 55 / 15 / 27
Type III / 10 / 10 / 100

(results of water body types per RBD achieving GES for D5)

Table 2 Example of aggregation per RBD

RBD-A / Total area of cw / Area of cw achieving GES / % of area of cwachieving GES
TOTAL / 90 / 25 / 28

(results of coastal waters per RBD achieving GESfor D5)

2.2Prefilling for D8

Similar to D5, for D8 the assessments performed under the WFD regarding the Chemical Status of the water bodies and Territorial waters can also be used.

The Chemical Status will be Good when concentrations of Priority Substances(PS)do not exceed the environmental quality standards (EQS) set under Directive 2013/39/EU. Otherwise, it would be Poor.

It is calculated for water bodies and territorial waters, and in both cases the results could be brought to the MSFD reporting schema MSFD8_1ab_Assessments, at the level of the OverallStatus class. In this case, all the substances are relevant to D8 (D8C1), so directly the result of the Chemical Status assessment would be brought.

On the other hand, the Ecological Status includes the classification of the water bodies regarding the River Basin Specific Pollutants (RBSP), which are contaminants that are relevant at the RBDs level. The RBSP are included within the physico-chemical conditions. So the classification of water bodies regarding these pollutants could also be prefilled.

The prefilling would be done as follows:

-For PS:

• From WFD schema SWMET, class SWPrioritySubstance: all Priority Substances (psCode) used for the assessment of chemical status (psStatusAssessment) would be extracted.
• From WFD schema SWB, class SWPrioritySubstance: the PS causing failure would be identified and would be assigned ‘NotGood’ for GES (MSFD schema element: FeatureStatus).
• For the rest of PS used in the assessments, a default value of ‘Good’ would be prefilled for GES.

-For RBSP:

• From WFD schema SWMET, class SWRBSP: all RBSP and their EQS will be extracted
• From WFD schema SWB, class SurfaceWaterBody: when qeStatusOrPotentialValue=3 for qeCode=‘QE3-3 – River Basin Specific Pollutants’
• For WFD schema SWB, class FailingRBSP: the RBSP causing failure would be identified and would be assigned ‘NotGood’ for GES (MSFD schema element: FeatureStatus).
• For the rest of RBSP used in the assessments, a default value of ‘Good’ would be prefilled for GES.

Similar aggregations could be done with the results at the water body level for the coastal water types or coastal waters per RBD.

ANNEX: Integration procedure

Under the WFD, surface water bodies are classified in 5 classes according to their Ecological Status (High/Good/Moderate/Poor/Bad), and in 2 classes (Good/Poor) according to their Chemical Status.

The classification of the Ecological Status is based on 1) Biological elements (QE1), 2) Hydromorphological elements (QE2) and 3) Physico-chemical elements (QE3).

Table 3 includes the elements assessed under WFD, as well as a mapping of these to the MSFD criteria of the draft revised Decision.

Table 3 Mapping of WFD status quality elements and MSFD criteria

WFD Status Quality Element
(StatusQE_Enum) / MSFD Criteria for D5 (draft revised Decision)
QE1-1 – Phytoplankton / D5C2 – Chlorophyll a concentration (P)
D5C3 – Harmful algal blooms (S)
QE1-2 – Other aquatic flora
QE1-2-1 – Macroalgae / D5C6 – Opportunistic macroalgae of benthic habitats (S)
QE1-2-2 – Angiosperms / D5C7 – Macrophyte communities of benthic habitats (S)
QE1-2-3 – Macrophytes
QE1-2-4 – Phytobenthos
QE1-3 – Benthic invertebrates / D5C8 – Macrofaunal communities of benthic habitats (S)
QE1-4 – Fish
QE2-1 – Hydrological or tidal regime
QE2-2 – River continuity conditions
QE2-3 – Morphological conditions
QE3-1-1 – Transparency conditions / D5C4 – Photic limit (S)
QE3-1-2 – Thermal conditions
QE3-1-3 – Oxygenation conditions / D5C5 – Dissolved oxygen concentration (P)
QE3-1-4 – Salinity conditions
QE3-1-5 – Acidification status
QE3-1-6-1 – Nitrogen conditions / D5C1 – Nutrient concentrations (P)
QE3-1-6-2 – Phosphorus Conditions / D5C1 – Nutrient concentrations (P)
QE3-3 – River Basin Specific Pollutants
(P) Primary criteria; (S) Secondary criteria

It is to be noted that the WFD assessments on Phytoplankton may cover 2 MSFD criteria (D5C2 and D5C3), while the data coming from WFD reporting only refers to Phytoplankton. The information on whether the MS are using one or the two criteria (or other) may only be accessible through the Intercalibration (IC) Decision[4] or the River Basin Management Plans.

On the other hand, Nitrogen conditions (QE3-1-6-1) cover Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia, Ammonium and Total Nitrogen, while Phosphorus Conditions (QE3-1-6-2)cover Orthophosphatesand Total Phosphorous. The result, again, can’t be disaggregated into the different determinands, so in any case it wouldn’t be equivalent to D5 results beyond coastal waters, where the elements to be assessed are DIN, TN, DIP and TP.

Within the reporting of the WFD, the classification of the status of the water bodies according to all of these elements is provided, although differently addressed across the elements: 5 classes for the Biological elements (High/Good/Moderate/Poor/Bad), 3 classes for the Physico-chemical elements (High/Good/Less than good) and 2 classes for the Hydromorphological elements (High/Good).

Result per elementand water body

The classification of the water bodies per element can therefore be prefilled for the MSFD 2018 reporting, using the schema ‘MSFD8_1ab_Assessments’. It would be done for the elements relevant for the MSFD, as compiled in Table 1.

The following is assumed: the ecological objective for the water bodies is to achieve at least Good Ecological Status, being the Good-Moderate boundary the equivalent to the GES threshold values. However, the Good-Moderate boundary is not collected within the WFD reporting, but published in the IC Decision. The IC has only been run for BQEs and common water types, by the time being, so the Good-Moderate boundaries would only be prefilled for the BQEs and common water types, extracted from the IC Decision.

Therefore, the schema MSFD8_1ab_Assessments for MSFD 2018 reporting could be prefilled with both the information of the GES (coming from the IC Decision) and the results for the elements (relevant for D5) coming from the WFD 2016 reporting.

Table 4 includes the mapping of the reporting elements that would be used for the prefilling.

Table 4 Mapping of WFD to MSFD elements to bring the results per element and water body

Schema MSFD8_1ab
(MSFD) / Schema SWB
(WFD) / Filling-in (from SWB schema to MSFD8_1ab schema)
Class: MarineUnit
Element: MarineUnitID / Class: SurfaceWaterBody
Element: euSurfaceWaterBodyCode*
Class: Feature
Element: GEScomponent / To befilled in according to Table 3
Class: StatePressure
Element: Parameter / Class: SurfaceWaterBody
Element: qeCode / ‘qeCode’
Class: StatePressure
Element: TValue / To beextractedfrom the ICDecision (2017)**
Class: StatePressure
Element: TVsource / ‘ICDecision’
Class: StatePressure
Element: Trend / Class: SurfaceWaterBody
Element: qeStatusOrPotentialChange / Conditional: if qeStatusOrPotentialChangeis +1 OR +2, ‘Improving’; if qeStatusOrPotentialChangeis 0, ‘Stable’; if qeStatusOrPotentialChangeis -1 OR -2, ‘Deteriorating’
Class: StatePressure
Element: TVAchieved / Class: SurfaceWaterBody
Element: qeStatusOrPotentialValue / Conditional: if qeStatusOrPotentialValueis 1 OR 2, ‘YES’; if qeStatusOrPotentialValueis 3 OR 4 OR 5, ‘NO’
Class: StatePressure
Element: TemporalCoverage / Class: SurfaceWaterBody
Element: qeMonitoringPeriod / ‘qeMonitoringPeriod’
*Only for the categorycoastal waters (CW) in surfaceWaterBodyCategory
**To beextractedaccording to the information on the IC water types in surfaceWaterBodyIntercalibrationType

Result per water body following WFD approach

Based on the classification of the elements, the classification of the Ecological Status is done on the basis of the lower classification of the Biological Quality Elements (BQEs). The physico-chemical and hydromorphological conditions are only taken into account when the BQEs achieve Good or High status:

1)If BQEs are High & the Physico-chemical conditions are High & the Hydromorphological conditions are High: HIGH Ecological Status

2)If BQEs are High & the Physico-chemical conditions aren’t High: GOOD Ecological Status

3)If BQEs are Good & the Physico-chemical conditions are High: GOOD Ecological Status

4)If BQEs are Good & the Physico-chemical conditions aren’t High: MODERATE Ecological Status

Therefore, the prefilling would be done with those elements relevant for the MSFD (see Table 3), according to the integration rule explained above. Table 5 shows an example of how the results at the element level would be integrated per water body. The value to be filled in would be the correspondent to ‘Result D5’.

Table 5 Example of classification of water bodies according to the elements relevant for the MSFD

RBD-A / Water type / Area / QE1-1 / QE1-2-1 / QE1-2-2 / QE1-3 / Result BQEs / QE3-1-1 / QE3-1-3 / QE3-1-6-1 / Result D5
wb1 / I / 5 / 3
wb2 / I / 20 / 4
wb3 / II / 15 / 2
wb4 / II / 40 / 3
wb5 / III / 10 / 1

The MSFD reporting schema prefilled will again be MSFD8_1ab_Assessments, but in this case it would be done for the class ‘OverallStatus’. Table 6 includes the schema elements that would be used for the prefilling.

Table 6Mapping of WFD to MSFD elements to bring the results per water body

Schema MSFD8_1ab
(MSFD) / Schema SWB
(WFD) / Filling-in (from SWB schema to MSFD8_1ab schema)
Class: MarineUnit
Element: MarineUnitID / Class: SurfaceWaterBody
Element: euSurfaceWaterBodyCode*
Class: Feature
Element: GEScomponent / ‘D5’
Class: OverallStatus
Element: FeatureStatus / Conditional: if ‘Result D5’is 1 OR 2, ‘Good’; if ‘Result D5’is 3 OR 4 OR 5, ‘NotGood’
*Only for the categorycoastal waters (CW) in surfaceWaterBodyCategory

The results for D5 then would be prefilled for each water body.

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