DIRECTORATE GENERAL JRC
JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE
Institute of Environment and Sustainability
WFD Intercalibration Phase 2 : Milestone 1 report (for ECOSTAT meeting 1-2 October 2009)
The reporting for the second phase of the intercalibration exercise will be done according to the new guidance document that is in development. A first version of the guidance was distributed earlier. A new draft will be sent out to ECOSTAT members and GIG leads in the first week of September, for discussion at the ECOSTAT meeting of 1-2 October 2009.
The new guidance already foresees a ‘Milestone 1’ report for the autumn of 2009, with the following key elements:
– overview of the national assessment methods that will be intercalibrated
– check of their WFD compliance of the national methods
–‘feasibility check’ for intercalibration (do methods address common types and pressures, and follow a similar assessment concept?)
– progress on compilation of IC dataset
The template below follows the requirement of the (draft) guidance. All GIGs are kindly requested to submit their progress reports for the relevant quality elements following this template as much as possible. At this stage it is acceptable to leave empty those sections that have not been addressed in your GIG.
Also, you are requested to update the relevant sections of the intercalibration work plan (distributed as a separate document).
Depending on how the work has been organized, we expect one response for each quality element for each of the GIGs. In case of horizontal activities (e.g. large rivers) or where the work is carried out cross-GIG (e.g. fish in rivers), one coordinated response is expected. Please contact the IC steering group if you need any further clarifications:
Sandra Poikane () - Lakes
Wendy Bonne () - Coastal/Transitional
Wouter van de Bund () - Rivers.
Please send your responses before 15th September 2009 to
Water category/GIG/BQE/ horizontal activity: / TW/MED/FISHInformation provided by: / Mario Lepage
1: Organisation
1.1. Responsibilities and participation
Please indicate how the work is organised, indicating the lead country/person.
Fish coordinator: France – Mario Lepage & Hilaire Drouineau
Groups involved in the IC:
France –– Mario Lepage, Hilaire Drouineau
Italy – Patrizia Torricelli*
Spain – (Angel Perez Ruzafa, if TW in Murcia Region) ; need to find contacts in other autonomous Regions where TW occur
Greece – Manos Koutrakis
*Italy doesn't have a national index (many groups working on fishes) à for Italy the national coordinator for Fish-QE is indicated (Giovanna Marino – ISPRA)
Are there any difficulties with the participation of specific Member States? If yes, please specify
One problem is coming up with Spain because there is several autonomous regions and there is difficulties for obtaining a list of TW bodies for Spain and not only for the region where the representative come from. It seems, to my knowledge, that such list does not exist on a national level. Angel Perez Ruzafa that was given as the contact person for TW finally told me that there is no TW in Murcia region. The lagoon in this region were defined as CW because of the very few freshwater flowing in. If there is some TW in other autonomous region we don’t know ! Not really because we know Baleares Island have TW. But no information about other regions. Could it be possible to have a lead contact for fish in TW in Spain ??? or at least a contact person for each region with who we may have to work…
We are going to start working with Angel Perez Ruzafa nut it would be nice for other MS to make the situation clearer.
1.2. Work plan, Timetables and deadlines
Annex 1 to this questionnaire contains the GIG work plans as presented at ECOSTAT in April 2008 Please provide an updated version the general work plan for your GIG below
GIG / MED / Last update:Quality element / Fish in TW
Overview of results achieved to date and issues to complete/improve:
A first meeting of fish experts was held in Bordeaux (France) in July 2008. This is a short summary of the results.
Were present at that meeting, Pr. Piero Franzoi and Dr. Anita Franco from the team of Pr. Patricia Torricelli (University of Venezia). These persons have experience in developing fish index in italian lagoon but they were not the official contact person for fish in TW in Italy. We also had the participation of Pr. Angel Perez Ruzafa from University of Murcia as the official contact person for Spain within the GIG MED. Dr. Maud Cottet and Dr. Mario Lepage from the Cemagref (Bordeaux, France) hosted the meeting. Each MS presented their up to date work concerning the development of a fish index. We also receive a written contribution from Dr. Manos Koutrakis from Greece.
The preliminary conclusions were that the already developed tools in Spain and Italy were hardly compatible with WFD needs. Greece was at the very beginning so their classification tools was under development. France have developped of national tool that still need to be improve but that can already be used to give a classification. This tool is not yet nationally agreed. France has developed an approach based on the response of each metric to a level of pressure estimated through the use of Corine Land Cover (2000) categories of land use. It was then decided to try to apply the methodology on the Venezia lagoon and on Mar Menor in Spain.
Scope of the continuation work:
An intercalibration field experiment is plan for October 2009 in Mar Menor.
Questions still remain about this field experiment where each MS was suppose to apply its own methodology on the same intercalibration site at the same time in order to be able to compare the result and to start a real intercalibration process. Today the official contact person for Italy, Giovanna Marino announced that Italy has decided to leave fish fauna out for the moment and wait for the results of intercalibration. Nevertheless, Giovanna Marino insisted on the importance of this intercalibration phase and she is trying to get fund for the venezian team to participate to the October meeting in Spain. Greece has announced that their classification tool is not yet ready but they would still be willing to participate in October. France is ready to go to that meeting.
We were questioned by the fact that Mar Menor is classified in Spain as a Coastal water ! Can we intercalibrate TW fish indices in a coastal water ? We finally agreed on this saying that we are intercalibrating the results of tools that we all expect are well designed for that type of water even if the “official type” is coastal.
Estimated timetable for the completion of the work:
If MS can propose a classification tool in the first semester of 2010 we should be able to have an intercalibration of the tools at the beginning of 2011.
Comments:
The main problem with intercalibration up to now in GIG MED is to have at least two MS ready to do it. To my knowledge, Italy is on standby, they don’t have yet a classification tool developed for WFD, Greek tool is still under development and for Spain, the only known tool is “visual sensus” based with scuba diving methodology that may be applicable only in Mar Menor which was designated as a coastal water! So we need to see what can be done in October 2009 and we should have a better idea of the feasibility of the task.
France has a classification tool for fish in TW. Some metrics need to be add to strengthen the confidence in the diagnostic.
2: Methods to be intercalibrated
2.1. Overview of Member States providing national assessment methods
Do you have an overview of the national classification methods that will be intercalibrated? If not: when will this information be available?
No real overview up to now. We should have a better understanding after the meeting in Spain (October 19-23th).
2.2. Checking of compliance of national assessment methods with the WFD requirements
What are the arrangements in the GIG to verify the compliance of national assessment methods with the WFD requirements ? Has the GIG already started an evaluation of the compliance of national assessment methods with WFD requirements? Please give a short report on how this is done (or will be done)
As we don’t know yet in details the classification tools, it is hard to answer. A priori the visual sensus methodology developed by Spain is only suitable in deep and clear lagoon which could represent one type. The Venetian tool (developed on Venice lagoon) is pretty much data demanding and seem difficult to apply on a broader scale. Some adaptation could be done for WFD. No information about Greek tool. French tool was developed to answer to a gradient of human pressure. This tool should fulfil totally the requirements of WFD.
We will discuss at the next meeting and verify the compliance of each methodology with the WFD requirements.
2.3: Progress on Feasibility checking: method acceptance criteria
The intercalibration process ideally covers all national assessment methods within a Geographical Intercalibration Group. However, the comparison of dissimilar methods (“apples and oranges”) has to be avoided. Intercalibration exercise is focused on specific type / biological quality element / pressure combination. The intercalibration guidance foresees an “IC feasibility check” to narrow the actual intercalibration analysis to methods that address the same common type(s), the same anthropogenic pressure(s), and follow a similar assessment concept.
The task of the GIG is compilation of groups including similar assessment methods, and evaluation of “outlying” methods. A feasibility check includes coverage of intercalibration types, pressures and method concept. The aim of the check is to address if all national methods address the same common type(s) and pressure(s), and follow a similar assessment concept.
· Has the GIG evaluated if intercalibration is feasible in terms of typology? . Are the common type delineations suited for the specific BQE intercalibration exercise? Are all assessment methods appropriate for the intercalibration water body types ? Are any types going to be added?
Has the GIG evaluated if intercalibration is feasible in terms of typology? Not yet
Are the common type delineations suited for the specific BQE intercalibration exercise? Some common criteria were accepted to make the typology. Criteria are based on salinity and surface area.
Some type could be added if the present typology show that it is not suitable for IC.
· Has the GIG evaluated if intercalibration is feasible in terms of pressures?Do all national methods address the same pressure(s) ?
Pressures were not yet evaluated on a common basis. France has used some categories Corinne Land Cover (2000) as a proxy of human activity and disturbances on the waterbodies. This particular way of assessing the human pressures was done on the French lagoons, on Venice lagoon and on Mar Menor. This assessment could be done easily by GIS spatial analysis on more water bodies if we have the GIS layer corresponding to the WB.
· Has the GIG evaluated if intercalibration is feasible in terms of assessment concept? Do all national methods follow a similar assessment concept? If the GIG previously encountered problems with regard to checking comparability of dissimilar methods, how are these resolved ?
The main idea accepted is that we are going to IC the final results of each tool after having assessed the same WB at the same period. Every MS should come to Mar Menor in October with his own sampling gear, apply his own sampling protocol and calculate the result of the assessment. We will then compare the results and see where are the differences if there are any.
2.4: Progress on Collection of IC dataset and Design the work for IC procedure
3.1. Collection of IC dataset
Please describe progress on data collection within the GIG
No data collection was done up to now. First dataset should be acquired in October this year. We may need one extra data collection next year.
2.4: Progress on Reference conditions/benchmarking
Which actions are ongoing/planned to compare reference conditions (including the results of the first phase) and boundary setting ?
As far as we are comparing the final result of the fish indices, we think it is not necessary to compare the reference condition for each index. The reference condition relates to a sampling protocol and we are not using similar sampling protocol. Considering the boundary setting, we said that we will look at this after having compared our results from Mar Menor sampling in order to see if the boundary setting could be adjusted to find an agreement on the final score of each fish index.
2.5. Design the work for IC procedure
Please describe progress of choice of the appropriate intercalibration option.
The choice for IC is option 3. It means : intercalibrating the results of each fish index not taking into account the way to get the result. If everybody have a comparable scale to measure the ecological quality even if the use different indicators and metrics its should comply with the WFD needs.
3. Further comments
We still have several difficulties to have a good overview of what can be done and with who but we already identified persons who have good will to participate and work to solve the problem.
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