Contribution to the assessment of European River Basin Management Plans

Alberto Pistocchi, Alberto Aloe, Fayçal Bouraoui, Ad de Roo, Bruna Grizzetti, Marco Pastori, Wouter van de Bund, Giovanni Bidoglio


Contribution to the assessment of European River Basin Management Plans


The JRC Pressure Indicators v.1.1


2016


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This publication is a Technical report by the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s in-house science service. It aims to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policy-making process. The scientific output expressed does not imply a policy position of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of this publication.
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Table of contents

3.1 Nutrients 14

3.1.1 Methodology 14

3.1.2 Spatial and temporal resolution 14

3.1.3 Input 14

3.1.4 Preliminary assessment 14

3.1.5 Previous applications 15

3.1.6 Strengths 15

3.1.7 Weaknesses 16

3.1.8 State of play 16

3.2 Chemicals 16

3.2.1 Methodology 16

3.2.2 Spatial and temporal resolution 20

3.2.3 Input 20

3.2.4 Preliminary assessment 20

3.2.5 Previous applications 21

3.2.6 Strengths 21

3.2.7 Weaknesses 21

3.2.8 State of play 21

3.3 Oxygen-depleting substances (BOD) and suspended sediments 22

3.3.1 Methodology 22

3.3.2 Spatial and temporal resolution 22

3.3.3 Input 22

3.3.4 Preliminary assessment 22

3.3.5 Previous applications 22

3.3.6 Strengths 22

3.3.7 Weaknesses 22

3.3.8 State of play 22

4.1 Methodology 22

4.2 Spatial and temporal resolution 22

4.3 Input 22

4.4 Preliminary assessment 23

4.5 Previous applications 24

4.6 Strengths 24

4.7 Weaknesses 24

4.8 State of play 24

5.1 Methodology 25

5.2 Spatial and temporal resolution 25

5.3 Input 25

5.4 Preliminary assessment 25

5.5 Previous applications 25

5.6 Strengths 25

5.7 Weaknesses 26

5.8 State of play 26

6.1 Methodology 27

6.2 Spatial and temporal resolution 27

6.3 Input 27

6.4 Preliminary assessment 27

6.5 Previous applications 28

6.6 Strengths 29

6.7 Weaknesses 29

6.8 State of play 29

7.1 State of play 29

8.1 State of play 29

9.1 State of play 29

9.1.1 Alien species 29

9.1.2 Plastic litter 30

9.1.3 Aggregated pressures in coastal and transitional waters 30

Foreword

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Acknowledgements

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Abstract

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1. Introduction

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) 60/2000/EC requires the European Union Member States to ensure the non-deterioration in status of water bodies and achieve a good status by 2015; any exemption to these obligations is to be justified according to the conditions set by the Directive. As part of the planning process also required by the Directive, Member States must identify pressures, such as pollution or hydro-morphological alterations, which hamper the achievement of good status, and plan appropriate measures to address those pressures. In the process of producing the river basin management plans (RBMPs), Member States and river basin authorities have been using different tools for the characterization of pressures, including modelling tools, expert judgment, and a combination of both. Certain pressures may not have been assessed. The methods used, and the criteria adopted to decide whether a water body is affected by a significant pressure, form part of the information reported to the European Commission. The variety of possibilities in the assessment allowed to Member States raises the issue of the consistency of the evaluation across Europe. In the context of the assessment of the 2^nd cycle of RBMPs by the European Commission, it is desirable to achieve an overall picture of the pressures on European water bodies. This entails bringing together the specific knowledge of individual Member States and river basin authorities, necessary in order to be specific on the individual water bodies, at the same time ensuring sufficient homogeneity and consistency at the European scale.

The Joint Research Centre, as the European Commission’s in-house science service, has been maintaining and developing for some years a set of models and indicators that describe pressures on water bodies ranging from nutrient pollution, to hydrological regime, to chemicals and morphological alterations (the “JRC pressure indicators”). These are usually in the form of maps picturing trends at the European scale and have been used, inter alia, for the impact assessment of the Blueprint to safeguard Europe’s waters¹. In 2014, they have been applied in a preliminary and exploratory comparison with reported pressures in the 1^st RBMPs². This was the first attempt to check the consistency of Reported Percentages of water bodies at Risk of not achieving the WFD goals by 2015 due to each category of pressures (RPRs), with the partial evidence available from European-scale datasets and assessments compiled by the JRC. The analysis did not aim at assessing the accuracy of reporting, and was purely factual and non-judgmental. It consisted of comparing the ranking of river basin districts (RBDs) (from high risk of not achieving the WFD goals to low risk) using RPRs reported by Member States with the ranking of European indicators of pressure (from high pressure to low pressure on the basin district) from pan-European data and assessments, and classifying the RBDs into 4 categories:

• 
  Class 1: both RPRs and European indicators rank the RBD relatively high, indicating a problem.
  
• 
  Class 2: both RPRs and European indicators rank the RBD relatively low, indicating less of a problem.
  
• 
  Class 3: RPRs rank the RBD relatively high, while European indicators rank the RBD relatively low.
  
• 
  Class 4: RPRs rank the RBD relatively low, while European indicators rank the RBD relatively high.
  

There may be several reasons for a discrepancy between RPRs and European scale evidence. The reader is referred to the report for all details. The key messages from the study are conveyed through a final section of the report that we reproduce hereafter for the comfort of the reader.

“The consistency of judgments between the European scale assessment and reports from the member states throughout all 7 types of pressures considered in this analysis is quite varied (Figure 74). Countries with a high level of consistency (“Class 1” + “Class 2” above 50%) include AT, BE, CZ, DE, EE, ES, FI, FR, LI, LV, MT, NL, PL, SE, SK and UK. The lowest rates of consistency are in RO, LU, PT, IT, HU. Countries with the overall highest rate of “Class 1” (certainty of need for action) include NL, UK, BE, and DE. Ambiguous classification never concerns more than 20% of the pressures for all countries.

The countries with the highest proportion of “Class 4” conditions include RO, LU, IT and HU, while countries with most “Class 3” conditions include AT, RO, SE, FR.

From this screening exercise, while it is apparent that actions are needed in several areas where pressures have been clearly identified to represent a concern (“Class 1”), there are also several cases in which there is limited agreement on the extent to which pressures may hamper the achievement of the WFD goals (“Class 3” and “Class 4”).

Among the pressures considered in this screening, those on which there is least degree of agreement are surface water diffuse pollution and hydromorphological pressures (Figure 75).



Figure 74– frequency of the different classes by country (average of the frequencies over the country’s RBDs).



Figure 75 – percentage (by area) of European RBDs classified in Class 1 or Class 2 for the different pressures, i.e. where there is agreement between reported pressures hampering the achievement of WFD 2015 goals and JRC pressure indicators.

All in all, the answer to the policy question addressed by this analysis, “Are we identifying all relevant pressures in a homogeneous and consistent way across the EU?“, tends to be “no”.

Particularly in the case of “Class 4” situations, there is a possibility that pressures are either not identified, or underestimated by the member states. On the contrary, in “Class 3” situations there is a possibility that member states overestimate the relevance of pressures, compared to other member states. It is equally possible that pressures locally produce actual impacts that are lower or higher than expected, due to specific conditions.

It should be well kept in mind, however, that “Class 4” and “Class 3” situations are not necessarily “wrong” situations, just like “Class 1” and “Class 2” are not necessarily “right”: rather, this screening exercise should be regarded as a step towards an intercalibration of European-scale and RBD-scale assessments. Disagreement between the European pressure indicators and the RBD reported percentage of water bodies at risk of not meeting WFD 2015 goals (RPR) may be due to several reasons including, for example:

• 
  errors in the models used at European scale (e.g. missing hydrological processes relevant for specific situations; poor calibration in certain areas; etc.);
  
• 
  incomplete input data (e.g. water abstractions; distribution of dams);
  
• 
  local or regional ecological conditions that determine an impact higher or lower than expected on the basis of pressure alone (e.g. higher nutrient buffering capacity of certain ecosystems; higher expected impact of nutrients in oligotrophic ecosystems);
  
• 
  combined effects of pressures (e.g. pollution and abstractions, together potentially increasing impacts for river ecosystems and decreasing impacts for coastal waters), that are not addressed in this study;
  
• 
  etc.
  

Also, when RPRs and European indicators are in agreement, they might be both wrong. Moreover, the classification proposed here for screening purposes is based on a division of RBDs into two parts, those above the median (assumed to be in relatively “bad” conditions from the point of view of pressures) and those below (assumed to be in relatively “good” conditions), but there is no guarantee that those below the median are all necessarily “good” in absolute terms, and the other way around.”

This first assessment was subject to consultation with experts from the member states. The response was quite limited (only DE, AT, NL and PT providing comments). However, this was the trigger of a discussion, with comments raising several points about both the approach and the results, admittedly exploratory and affected by a number of limitations. The exercise may be taken as a starting point towards an agreed-upon, overall picture of the pressures affecting our water bodies, that may be achieved by comparing the JRC pressure indicators (based on data available at community level and independent of what is reported by Member States under the WFD) with reported pressures. Such a comparison may support the analysis of consistency of pressure assessment across the EU as well as the identification of knowledge gaps, both essential when evaluating the state of European waters.

It is expected that, for many water bodies and river basins, the pressures identified by the member states are reflected in the JRC pressure indicators.

For some of the water bodies and river basins, it is possible that JRC pressure indicators identify certain pressures as relevant, while the member States do not report them as such. This may be due to the lack of detail or incompleteness of information at the European scale, or to the inadequacy of the JRC pressure indicators to capture those specific situations. Discrepancies may, in a few cases, be related to incompleteness of the reported information.

On the contrary, in other cases Member States may report certain pressures as relevant, while the JRC pressure indicators do not capture them adequately.

Before conducting any comparison, however, an open and collaborative examination of the JRC pressure indicators is essential in order to understand their level of representativeness, reliability and accuracy, as well as thematic, information and methodological gaps that should be addressed at European scale. Thematic gaps refer to pressures deemed important, but for which an assessment at European scale is simply not available or presently not possible. Information gaps refer to pressures on which indicators have been developed, but the data used at European scale are incomplete and could be integrated by other sources or by dedicated campaigns of acquisition. Methodological gaps refer to pressures that may be incorrectly described by the currently proposed indicators, and thus require the improvement of models or methods.

The JRC invites experts from European Union Member States to contribute, on a voluntary basis, to the examination of the proposed pressure indicators. The comments and criticism raised in this context will be used for their improvement before they can be used in the assessment of the 2^nd RBMPs.

This report describes the pressure indicators proposed by the JRC, including concentrations and loads of nutrients derived from EPIC and GREEN models, water balance components derived from the LISFLOOD model, and hydro-morphological pressure indicators under present conditions. Results will be disseminated for review by EU Member States, and subject to revisions based on feedback. This review of JRC model results will make them ready for use in support of the Commission’s 5th WFD Implementation Report (WFD art. 18). After an overview of the indicators proposed for the different reported pressures, we briefly summarize the methods, preliminary applications and state of play with the individual JRC pressure indicators.

2. Pressures and pressure indicators

The WFD Reporting Guidance 2016³ lists 56 types of pressures on water bodies that member states may report as causing not achieving the WFD objectives (). At least one significant type of pressures, and the impacts it generates, should be reported for each water body where the status is less than good.

Many of these types of pressures may be specific to individual situations in European river basins, and cannot be compared with European indicators: Member States (MS) reports are the only available information source. For some, however, sufficient information is available in order to draw a picture at European scale (for instance, diffuse pollution from agricultural sources of nutrients).

We should stress once more that the JRC pressure indicators are results of model calculations or processing of available spatial datasets at European scale, independent of the information reported by Member States under the WFD. They aim at mapping situations where a certain pressure might hamper the achievement of water body status objectives set by the WFD. While pressures represent human activities generating a change in status (e.g. emissions of chemicals alter concentration in water bodies), in this work we refer with “pressure indicator” to any variable that may suggest potential difficulties with achieving the WFD objectives. Variables of this type include predicted concentrations of nutrients or chemicals, or hydromorphological alteration metrics.

indicates the JRC pressure indicators proposed for each pressure type. In some cases, the proposed indicator corresponds to several pressures types. For example hydrological alteration is represented through indicators reflecting the sum of all abstractions and not individual sectors’ ones, and the indicator of dams does not differentiate among the purposes of the dams. Therefore, in the table there may be a single indicator for a group of more than one pressure identified in the WFD Reporting Guidance.

In , we display in green the pressures for which a pertinent indicator exists at pan-European scale (possibly requiring to be updated). A second category of pressures, shown in yellow, includes those deemed prioritary to be addressed at pan-European scale, but presently not reflected in JRC indicators. Additional indicators for these pressures are being (or will be) developed in the context of ongoing JRC work. Therefore, the JRC strives to provide them in the course of the assessment of the 2^nd RBMPs by the European Commission, compatibly with available resources. Both for green and yellow pressures, certain indicators stem from well-established methods and peer-reviewed scientific analyses, whereas other indicators are being developed as part of the research conducted at the JRC. These indicators need to be appropriately tested before they can be reliably used. They are displayed in red in . The JRC strives to test them in the course of the assessment of the 2^nd RBMPs by the European Commission, compatibly with available resources.

The remainder of this report provides a short overview of the individual indicators listed in the table, as well as the essential information on the models and methods used for their calculation. Additional details may be found in the references cited through the report, and will be presented in the specific discussions to be held in the course of consultations with the experts from Member States.

It should be stressed that, ideally, the indicators should enable a comparison with reported pressures at the individual water body level. In certain cases, this will not be possible due to the coarse resolution of European-scale assessments. In those cases, an appropriate strategy for comparison needs to be devised. This will be discussed at a later stage of the work.

Pressure type	SW or GW?	Proposed indicators^4	Tools	Ref. §
1.1 - Point – Urban waste water	SW	Worst among N, P, BOD, TSS or priority chemicals concentration calculated from urban point sources only	GREEN model, GREEN+ model for BOD, TSS and priority chemicals	3.1, 3.2, 3.3
1.3 - Point - IED plants	SW	Worst among N, P, BOD, TSS or priority chemicals concentration calculated from E-PRTR emissions only		3.1, 3.2, 3.3
1.4 - Point - Non IED plants
1.2 - Point - Storm overflows	SW	N, P, TSS and BOD concentrations from combined sewer overflows	Specific analysis using urban runoff estimation from LISFLOOD	8
1.8 - Point – Aquaculture
1.5 - Point - Contaminated sites or abandoned industrial sites
1.6 - Point - Waste disposal sites
1.7 - Point - Mine waters
2.1 - Diffuse - Urban run-off	SW	Dilution ratio of urban runoff in rivers	Specific analysis using urban runoff estimation from LISFLOOD	8
2.2 - Diffuse – Agricultural	SW, GW	SW: Worst among N, P, concentration calculated from agricultural diffuse sources only; GW: leaching flux of nitrogen	SW: GREEN model; GW: EPIC model	3.1 (SW); 6 (GW)
2.3 - Diffuse – Forestry	SW	Worst among N, P, concentration calculated from forest diffuse sources only	GREEN model	3.1
2.4 - Diffuse – Transport
2.5 - Diffuse – Contaminated sites or abandoned industrial sites
2.6 - Diffuse - Discharges not connected to sewerage network	SW	Worst among N, P, BOD, TSS or priority chemicals concentration calculated from urban point sources only	GREEN model, GREEN+ model for BOD, TSS and priority chemicals	3.1, 3.2, 3.3
2.7 - Diffuse - Atmospheric deposition	SW	N concentration calculated from atmospheric deposition only	GREEN model	3.1
2.8 - Diffuse – Mining
2.9 - Diffuse – Aquaculture
3.1 – Abstraction or flow diversion – Agriculture 3.2 – Abstraction or flow diversion – Public water supply 3.3 – Abstraction or flow diversion – Industry 3.4 – Abstraction or flow diversion – Cooling water 3.5 – Abstraction or flow diversion – Hydropower	SW	WEI+ (consumption) WEI+ (abstractions) Flow alteration (10%-ile) Flow alteration (25%-ile)		4
3.6 – Abstraction or flow diversion - Fish farms
4.1.1 - Physical alteration of channel/bed/riparian area/shore - Flood protection 4.4 - Hydromorphological alteration - Physical loss of whole or part of the water body	SW	Worst among: Artificial land cover in floodplains Density of infrastructure in floodplains Riparian veg. buffer width / floodplain width	Ad-hoc GIS calculation	5
4.1.2 - Physical alteration of channel/bed/riparian area/shore – Agriculture	SW	Agricultural land cover in floodplains	Ad-hoc GIS calculation	5
4.1.3 - Physical alteration of channel/bed/riparian area/shore – Navigation
4.2.1 - Dams, barriers and locks - Hydropower 4.2.2 - Dams, barriers and locks - Flood protection 4.2.3 - Dams, barriers and locks - Drinking water 4.2.4 - Dams, barriers and locks - Irrigation 4.2.5 - Dams, barriers and locks – Recreation 4.2.6 - Dams, barriers and locks – Industry 4.2.7 - Dams, barriers and locks – Navigation	SW	Indicators of dam impact, e.g.: % catchment area intercepted by dams % Length of stream segment that is dams-free	Ad-hoc GIS calculation	5
4.3.1 - Hydrological alteration – Agriculture (e.g. land drainage)
4.3.2 - Hydrological alteration – Transport (e.g. navigation)
4.3.3 - Hydrological alteration – Hydropower (e.g. hydropeaking)
4.3.4 - Hydrological alteration – Public water supply
4.3.5 - Hydrological alteration - Aquaculture
5.1 - Introduced species and diseases	SW	Indicators to be defined	Information from JRC EASIN^5	9
5.2 - Exploitation or removal of animals or plants
5.3 – Litter or fly tipping	SW	Indicators to be defined	JRC exploratory research ongoing	9
6.1 - Groundwater – Recharges
6.2 - Groundwater – Alteration of water level or volume	GW	Groundwater volume deficit indicator	LISFLOOD	7
9 - Anthropogenic pressure - Historical pollution
[General] Transitional and coastal waters pressures	SW	Land use simplified index (LUSI)	Ad-hoc GIS calculation	9

Table –Pressure types causing non-achievement of WFD objectives, and corresponding proposed JRC Pressure Indicators. This table does not list “unknown” or “other” pressures (Annex 1 of the WFD Reporting Guidance 2016) that are, by definition, those not amenable to pan-European indicators. SW=surface water bodies; GW= groundwater bodies.

3. Surface water quality

Indicators of surface water quality include concentrations of nutrients, total suspended sediments (TSS), oxygen-depleting substances as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), and concentrations of priority chemicals. Nutrients are relatively well-studied at pan-European scale; BOD and TSS are not yet modelled at pan-European scale, but their monitoring and understanding is well-established at national and regional level in Europe. Priority chemicals are far less studied at pan-European scale, and present a number of specific aspects to be addressed in each river basin district. The models used for calculation allow distinguishing by emission source. Therefore it is possible to compute concentrations arising from one emission source category at a time (point/diffuse, urban/industrial/agricultural/forestry/atmospheric deposition), or concentrations resulting from all sources together.