Environmental Monitoring & SIG: A future goal of the Water Framework Directive. The case of Andalusia coast.

Cristina Huertas-Olivares, Jose Usero, Jose Morillo, Ignacio Gracia

Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Seville, (E)

Abstract

The Department of Environment from the Council of Andalusia is the administration in charge to monitor the coast and transitional waters of Andalusia. Since 1988 the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering from the University of Seville is making that work, analysing several physic-chemical elements from water and sediment.

On 22 December 2000, the Directive 2000/60/CE (WFD) of the European Parliament and the Council of 23rd October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy was officially published. This Directive constitutes the most important EU initiative in the water field for decades. All member states countries have to adapt their water management system to the requirements for assessment, monitoring and public participation of the WFD. It marks an important trend toward an ecosystem-based approach for water policy and water resource management. The WFD requires "good water status" for all European waters by 2015, so a lot of research is required to implement the WFD.

In respect to environmental monitoring, a multidisciplinary approach is needed. Attention needs to be paid to geography and geology (size, location, etc.), to biological quality elements (phytoplankton, fish fauna, etc), to hydromorphological quality elements (hydrological regime, etc.) and to chemical and physico-chemical quality elements (thermal conditions, salinity, specific pollutants, etc). Every member state has to divide their water in surface water body types, establishing type-specific reference conditions for this surface water body types. Selection of monitoring points, frequency of monitoring, etc, has to be carefully chosen and extensively explained. Other aspects like identification of pressures, assessment of impact are also needed.

For that reason, The Department of Environment from the Council of Andalusia has former a multidisciplinary working group integrated by the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, the Department of Physical Geography, the Department of Physiology and Zoology of the University of Seville and an environmental enterprise, Egmasa, S.A. A big summary of the guide documents from the Common Implementary Strategy (CIS) working group of the WFD from the Europe Commission has been made. Each one is in charge of different aspects of the WFD, sharing their results between the others and making in common some of them, when a multidisciplinary advice is required. Andalusia has been divided already in different types of water, ecological regions and actual and potential eutrofication zones. A big effort is being made in developing analytical methods for the analysis of the priority substances from the Decision nº 2455/2001/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 2001 establishing the list of priority substances in the field of water policy and amending Directive 2000/60/EC. Now, the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering make several analyses and extensive monitoring.
The working group is preparing their results in geographic information systems (GIS). According to WFD and like the other member states, they finally have to present two maps with a colour code, the ecological status classification map (high, good, moderate, poor, bad) and the chemical status classification map (good, failing to achieve good).

Summing up, GIS will be an important tool of EU environmental monitoring and management in the future. Lots of environmental information will be available for government's decision-making and public participation.