Meeting: Water Directors meeting – Luxembourg, 25 November 2015
Agenda point: 3a. WFD reporting March 2016: finalised tools and documentation
Title: Note on the finalisation of the tools and documentation for the WFD reporting by Member States in March 2016 (DOC WD/2015-2/4)
Date: 23 November 2015
This document summarises the latest developments in the finalisation of the tools and documentation for the March 2016 WFD reporting by Member States.
The final version of the reporting guidance, XML and GML schemas and reporting tools are currently available in the corresponding resources page in Eionet (http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/help/WFD/WFD_521_2016). A significant effort was made to simplify further the reporting requirements and to harmonise them, to the extent possible, with INSPIRE requirements, while remaining faithful to the contents of the reporting guidance in the version that was endorsed by Water Directors in their meeting of June 2014 in Heraklion.
In the text agreed in June 2014, an Annex 0 was foreseen, to allow Member States to explain why, in exceptional cases, they were unable to report certain required data. In order to allow for an adequate automatic quality assurance system to be put in place, allowing practically immediate feed-back to the data reporters in case of errors, it is necessary that this Annex 0, when it exists, be submitted to the Commission in English at least one month before the date at which the reporting schemas will be uploaded into WISE. This will allow the Commission and the EEA to take the necessary measures so that the missing schema elements will not make it impossible to upload the files.
The Water Directors are invited to:
- take note of the state of play of the reporting guidance and tools
- agree that Annex 0 will be used only in exceptional cases and will be provided to the Commission, in English, at the latest one month before the date of reporting in WISE
- support the proposed reporting process and way forward as described in the attached note
Contacts:
Joaquim Capitão [
Jorge Rodriguez Romero [ /
Note on the finalisation of the tools and documentation for the WFD reporting by Member States in March 2016
In their meeting of June 2014, in Heraklion, Water Directors endorsed version 4.9 of the reporting guidance, subject to a systematic coherence and consistency check of the document, an effort to bring it, when possible, in line with INSPIRE requirements, the development of the corresponding reporting tools and the setting up of a reporting environment in WISE.
The reporting requirements that are present in the final version (6.0.2) of the guidance are the same that were agreed in June 2014, but the guidance was clarified and the structure of the reporting was simplified wherever possible. The main text of the guidance is being translated into all official languages.
The guidance document itself, the reporting schemas and the reporting tools were subject of several months of testing and this testing phase led to some corrections but also to further simplification. Technical guidance for reporting spatial data and on the reporting workflow was also developed. Additional suggestions for improvement of the reporting tools were made at the WG DIS meeting in October 2015 and were, when possible, incorporated in the tools.
Significant improvements have been implemented in the reporting tools and operational reporting environment. Data reporters will be able to thoroughly quality assure the data and information before finally submitting it. The system will generate quality assurance reports and a series of statistics that will allow Member States a thorough checking of the data.
The WG DIS meeting of October also dealt with the practical implementation of Annex 0, which was foreseen in the version of the guidance endorsed by Water Directors in June 2014.
Annex 0 was introduced in the reporting guidance to allow Member States to justify lack of reporting for some required information, either because the information is not available in the form requested or because there is an implementation gap. Member States will therefore have the possibility of accompanying the reporting with an Annex 0 in which they indicate which information is not reported and why.
The practical implementation of Annex 0 in the reporting flow is challenging, as the concept itself goes against the general focus on automating quality assurance procedures. This focus on automation was one of the basic drivers in the update of the reporting system, based on the experience from the first reporting cycle, as it will allow for a much faster feedback to the data reporters concerning errors in the schemas, therefore giving the data reporters to correct those errors within a much shorter timescale.
The solution that was found is feasible and keeps the possibility of automating the quality assurance process. It relies, however, on the agreement by Member States to submit Annex 0 to the Commission, in English, one month before the electronic reporting. This early submission will allow the Commission and the EEA to set up the necessary procedures to deal with the fact that the reported files will not pass the automatic quality assurance checks and to allow those files to be uploaded. It will also allow the Commission and the EEA to ensure that the missing information does not put at risk the integrity of the European-wide database and still allows for a meaningful assessment of the information that will be reported.
The final version of the reporting tools was presented and demonstrated in a workshop that took place in the EEA on 12-13 November. The workshop was well attended, with around 50 participants from more than 20 Member States, the EEA and the Commission and allowed for practical demonstrations of how the reporting system will work. The Commission and the EEA are ready to organise a second workshop closer to the reporting deadline if Member States consider it useful.
The actual reporting environment is currently be finalised and will be ready very soon to be used by Member States’ data reporters.
The final WFD Reporting Guidance document and the reporting tools are available at the corresponding resources page in Eionet (http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/help/WFD/WFD_521_2016).