WISER

Water bodies in Europe:Integrative Systems to assess

Ecological status and Recovery

Project overview

• EU-funded research project (FP7)

• 25 partners

• Duration: 3 years

• Planned starting date: February 2009 (depends on contract negotiations)

Project objectives• Which indicators are best suited for the

assessment of ecological status? Which are most reliable? Which are redundant? (lakes, transitional and coastal waters)

• How can results of different BQEs best be compared, intercalibrated and combined into an integrated appraisal of ecological status? (all water categories)

• How do BQEs respond to recovery? (all water categories)

• How is assessment and restoration affected by global change? (all water categories)

• How can uncertainty be quantified and minimised? (all water categories)

Project structure

Project partners1 (Coor.) University of Duisburg-Essen UDE Germany

2 Norwegian Institute for Water Research NIVA Norway

3 Natural Environment Research Council Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

NERC UK

4 AZTI-Tecnalia Foundation AZTI Spain

5 University of Hull, Institute of Estuarine & Coastal Studies UHULL UK

6 Aarhus University - National Environmental Research Institute AU Denmark

7 French Research Inst. for agricultural and environmental engineering CEMAGREF France

8 Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SLU Sweden 9 European Commission Joint Research Centre EC-JRC EU 10 Institute of Environmental Protection IEP Poland

11 Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. FVB Germany

12 Finnish Environment Institute SYKE Finland

13 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas CSIC Spain

14 ALTERRA Green World Research ALTERRA Netherlands

15 Universität für Bodenkultur Wien BOKU Austria

16 Estonian University of Life Sciences EMU Estonia

17 University College London UCL UK 18 Institute for Ecosystem Studies CNR-ISE Italy

19 WL | Delft Hydraulics (Deltares) DELFT Netherlands

20 Institute of Marine Research, University of Coimbra IMAR Portugal

21 Institute of Oceanology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences IO-BAS Bulgaria

22 Trinity College Dublin TCD Ireland

23 University of Salento USALENTO Italy

24 University of Bournemouth BourneU UK

25 La Sapienza University of Rome UNIROMA1 Italy

Project partners

Existing data sources used

• 97 databases built in previous EU-funded and national projects

• Lakes: 47 databases• Rivers 39 databases• Transitional waters: 14 databases• Coastal waters: 12 databases

• “Real world data” form ongoing national WFD monitoring always welcome (particularly in early 2009!)

• Close cooperation with GIGs in the fields of data harmonization and evaluation planned

Data harmonization, evaluation and modelling

• Central harmonization effort (sampling sites, taxalists, environmental data)

• Tailor-made databases for each workpackage

• Correlation of biotic metrics to stress gradients using a wide variety of statistical methods

• Modelling the impact of restoration and emerging stressors (such as climate change) on ecological status

Targeted field exercise

• Limited to lakes and to transitional / coastal waters

• Addressing all relevant BQEs

• Main target: Quantification of uncertainty through parallel sampling

Programming of a general applicable tool for uncertainty estimation

• Additional sampling effort will be sought from Member States through the GIGs (following the same protocols as WISER)

Selected products and deliverables

• Methods and tools for ecological status assessment (for water type / BQE combinations which still need to be addressed)

• Tools for uncertainty estimation

• Databases on different water categories and BQEs (subject to data licence agreements)

• Online databases on assessment methodologies

• Models to estimate the effects of restoration and emerging stressors

Further information...

... soon on www.wiser.eu