Abstract

The Water Framework Directive was incorporated into Swedish legislation in 2004. Its aim is to develop sustainable management of European surface- and groundwater and with the implementation of the directive there was a need for development of monitoring programmes and tools for assessing water quality. In response to these needs the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency opened a call for research on "Biological assessment criteria in aquatic environments". As a result of this call, a consortium of 11 partners, was granted a total budget of 47 million SEK funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Research Grant, to pursue the research programme WATERS during 5 years. WATERS has developed better indicators and methods for classification and references in Swedish lakes, streams and coastal waters. This provides a valuable basis for a new generation of biological assessment criteria to be defined by the authorities. WATERS has also developed general methods for assessing and reducing uncertainty in classification of ecological status, as well as harmonised and transparent methods for integrated assessment. In combination, these results are expected to improve and simplify future status assessments according to the Water Framework Directive. Several teams of ecologists specialised in limnic and marine waters have contributed, led by Jacob Carstensen, Aarhus university, Richard Johnson, Swedish university of agricultural sciences, Leif Pihl, University of Gothenburg and Sofia A Wikström, Stockholm university. The programme has been coordinated by Mats Lindegarth at the Swedish institute for the marine environment. We wish to express our sincere gratitude to everyone that has contributed to the success of the programme. WATERS steering group has consisted of the coordinator, team leaders and responsible contacts at the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. These have been represented by Mats Svensson and Cecilia Lindblad respectively. The authors alone are responsible for the content of this report.

Keywords

Environmental Assessment

Published in

WATERS Report
2016, Volume: 2016:10, number: 2016:10, pages: 44-50
Title: Ecological Assessment of Swedish Water Bodies; development, harmonisation and integration of biological indicators. Final report of the research programme WATERS. Deliverable 1.1-4
ISBN: 978-91-639-2098-1
Publisher: Havsmiljöinstitutet/Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment

SLU Authors

• Kahlert, Maria

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

Use of FOMA data


UKÄ Subject classification

Other Natural Sciences not elsewhere specified
Environmental Sciences
Ecology


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/81241