Article 8: Monitoring, Intercalibration and Classification

The UK is required to put into place a regime of monitoring of water bodies that supports monitoring their status in terms of risk of not meeting the objectives of WFD by 2006.

This requires the UK to establish both a) national monitoring framework and classification schemes; as well as b)contributing to the European intercalibration process

UK monitoring regime

1. The program of information gathering and method development for classification tools is proceeding during 2004-2005.

This will result in updating of the UKTAG guidance under Article 5 and 6. Any interim reports will be more likely available as R&D reports on www.wfddatabase.com

2. an overall monitoring framework that support meeting the different requirements of the Directives and future Program of Measures, including: a) operational and survellliance monitoring to track base-line changes in status of UK water bodies; as well as b) compliance monitoring. Refer to document 12a on Selection of Sites and Monitoring Networks.

Intercalibration

UK is taking part in the European intercalibration process (known as ECOSTAT) that will support defining the thresholds between statuses of water bodies under the WFD (high, good, moderate, poor).

The UK's Intercalibration Steering Group with the Rivers, Lakes and Marine task teams have identified the network of sites across the UK and providing this information into the European register. The European register of sites can be found at: http://ies.jrc.cec.eu.int/eewai/

Development of UK classification schemes

UKTAG is progressing on developing the classification schemes for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Activities include:

An overview of the UK approach to classification for surface waters is descibed in TAG Guidance 11a)