European assessment of water quality is too time-consuming

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25 Jun 2008
Unit: Wageningen University
Number: P043

 The water quality assessments of surface water in Europe conducted by experts are time-consuming and costly. Researchers from Wageningen University published the results of a major study in which they demonstrated – with colleagues from nine other EU countries – that the water quality assessment could be greatly simplified. The surprising results were published this week in Basic and Applied Ecology.

The European Union has mandated that the quality of surface water must be good in all Member States by the year 2015. To determine what 'good-quality' surface water is, detailed assessment systems have been developed based on lists of desired and undesired plant and animal species.

The aim of the water quality assessment of the European Union is to prevent the further decline of aquatic ecosystems and related ecosystems and regions. Moreover, in this way the EU wants to promote the sustainable use of water, improve the aquatic environment and provide increased protection.
According to the researchers, the problem is the top-heavy assessment approach, which threatens to take up the majority of the time of the experts in the corresponding countries. The unnecessarily complex procedures that are prescribed to detect problems negatively affect the capacity that is needed to solve the problems.

The international team of researchers collected data from 86 European lakes and asked experts to evaluate the ecological quality of these lakes. The analysis of this process showed that the clarity of the water provided a prediction of the experts' assessment that was as good as the complicated evaluation models based on lists of species. This may seem strange, but according to researchers Edwin Peeters and Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University, there is a good explanation. According to Peeters, the clarity of the shallow lakes in the study provides a good indicator of the general condition of the ecosystem. 'It is a widespread misconception that so much information is required to assess surface water quality.' But this is different if the issue is how the ecological quality can best be restored. According to the researchers, mapping out a good management strategy requires fundamental insight into the operation of the ecosystem.

Note to the editor:
More information can be obtained from the Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Wageningen University, Dr. ir. Edwin Peeters, Tel 0317 483899, E-mail Edwin.peeters@wur.nl or Prof. dr. Marten Scheffer, Tel: 0317 484039, E-mail: marten.scheffer@wur.nl. The article "Assessing ecological quality of shallow lakes: Does knowledge of transparency suffice?" in Basic and Applied Ecology can be read at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2007.12.00

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