European Environmental NGO Technical Review of the Water Framework Directive Intercalibration Process

1. Background

The objective of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) intercalibration process is to:

‘…establish values for the boundary between the classes of high and good status, and for the boundary between good and moderate status, which are consistent with the normative definitions of those class boundaries given in Annex V of the WFD.’[1]

This task is fundamental to the success of the WFD in improving the condition of European waters, and will set the standards that Member States must achieve through their programmes of measures. It is the heart of the Directive, and environmental NGOs are keen to ensure that intercalibration is successful and transparent, and establishes an interpretation of Good Ecological Status that is consistent with the normative definition in the Directive. The European Environment Bureau has therefore decided, with the endorsement of the Commission, to undertake a targeted technical review of the intercalibration process.

2. Aims

The aim of the NGO review is to help ensure that intercalibration is an understandable, transparent, and ultimately successful process, and that its results will be widely accepted. The review will cover rivers and lakes and will have a broad geographical spread across Europe. It will include both areas where the Geographic Intercalibration Groups (GIGs) activities are behind target and areas shown to be examples of best practice. The work will be funded by NGOs that are members of the European Environment Bureau. Resource limitations mean that the review will not be able to cover GIGs working on transitional and coastal waters.

The intention of the EEB is that this review will provide an effective appraisal of the progress and success of GIG and MemberState activities. It is not intended that the findings should be used to de-rail progress made in WFD intercalibration, but rather that it should help to establish, at an early stage, a strong foundation upon which later stages of the WFD can build.

3. Reasons for NGO concerns about the intercalibration process

There are currently three main reasons for NGO concern about the intercalibration process:

  1. The Water Framework Directive has enormous potential to protect and improve the European aquatic environment. However, the very scope and strength of the Directive means that it poses a significant challenge to the status quo. Encouraging greater openness to scrutiny will reduce the potential for vested interests to pressurise for a lowering of standards through the intercalibration process. At the very least, it will reassure NGOs and others that this has not been the case.
  1. With the completion of intercalibration the WFD will reach a critical technical stage. The adequacy and effectiveness of the intercalibration process will then have repercussions throughout the implementation of the first River Basin Management Plans, up to 2015. Given the limitations of existing data availability and the very real technical challenges presented to regulatory agencies by the intercalibration process, European NGOs are concerned to ensure that intercalibration quality is as high as possible before outcomes are set in stone.
  1. The Intercalibration process is highly technical and has largely been carried out by specialists working under significant time and resource pressures. This has prevented them from allocating as much time as would be desirable to communicating outcomes to EU citizens. European NGOs are, therefore, interested to ensure that legitimacy is maintained by increasing understanding of the important beneficial implications of the Directive. We anticipate that, in addition, involvement of the NGOs will increase legitimacy.

4. Outline programme of work

The proposed NGO Technical Review of Intercalibration will be carried out by experts representing the European Environment Bureau. We would like to do the review in two stages. Firstly, a brief initial overview of the intercalibration process, and secondly a more detailed analysis of specific GIG procedures and example cases of interest.

In order to be able to focus in on specific GIGs, we initially need to gain a better understanding of the nature of all the work being undertaken. We therefore ask River and Lakes GIG leaders if they would be happy to have a dialogue with EEB experts about their work, the nature of the data available, and the problems they are encountering.

In our more detailed analysis, we would like to focus on two river GIGs and two lakesGIGs. We hope to choose two with more extensive intercalibration datasets, and two with less comprehensive available datasets where potentially, more emphasis must be placed on expert judgement. We would like to work through all the steps used to define biological element class boundaries for a small number of specific examples and highlight best practice.

We would like to present an initial draft of our conclusions to the Commission, JRC and GIGs for comment, before providinga report to all those involved in the Intercalibration process.

5. Timescales

We would like to start this review as soon as possible, and with full cooperation from the GIGs, hope to compile a draft report by spring 2006 so that any conclusions can be presented to the GIGs, Commission and JRC in time to feed in to the final Intercalibration Report.

We hope to have discussion with GIG representatives over the next month or two in the run up to Christmas, and gain a better understanding of the process and work involved. After Christmas, we hope to start a more detailed analysis of selected GIGs.

EEB, 10th October 2005

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[1]Para 1.1, Guidance on the intercalibration process 2004 – 2006. Guidance document no 14.