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Indicator Specification
The water quality in transitional, coastal and marine regions can be adversely affected by land-based and water-based anthropogenic activities, which outputs can reach directly or indirectly this environment. Most pollution comes from land-based activities, through inland waterways, such as the application of agricultural fertilizers and animal farming, or the discharge of poorly or untreated wastewater. Pollution can however also be airborne, from emissions, although this is more relevant for marine off-shore waters. These activities may result in elevated nutrient (mostly nitrogen and phosphorus) concentrations leading to eutrophication and causing a chain of undesirable effects.
Usually a distinction is made between the direct and indirect effects of nutrient enrichment. The direct effects include high chlorophyll concentration in the water column, as a result of increased phytoplankton from increased primary production (refer to CSI023), and changes in species composition and functioning of the ecosystem (such as diatom to flagellate ratio, benthic to pelagic shifts, as well as bloom events of nuisance/toxic algal blooms). The increase in the risk of algal blooms (e.g. cyanobacteria) may cause the death of benthic fauna, wild and caged fish, or shellfish poisoning to humans. In addition to the effects on the aquatic ecosystem, the discoloration of water has negative aesthetical impacts, thus affecting likewise recreational activities.
The indirect effects of nutrient enrichment include increased abundance of perennial seaweeds and seagrasses (e.g. fucoids, eelgrass and Neptune grass), reduced water transparency related to an increase in suspended algae, and oxygen depletion. Increased growth and dominance of fast-growing filamentous macroalgae in shallow sheltered areas may, in turn, change the coastal ecosystem, increase the risk of local oxygen depletion and reduce biodiversity and nurseries for fish. Increased consumption of oxygen due to increased organic matter decomposition can lead to oxygen depletion, particularly in areas with stratified water masses (i.e. poor circulation), changes in community structure and death of the benthic fauna.
The main nutrients causing eutrophication are nitrogen (in the form of nitrate, nitrite or ammonium) and phosphorus (in the form of orthophosphate). However, algal growth in seawater is usually limited by available nitrogen, whereas rivers are particularly rich in nitrogen, so algae and plant growth in rivers are usually limited by phosphorus.
Silicate is essential for diatom growth, but it is assumed that its input is not significantly influenced by human activity.
The indicator shows 1) annual winter concentrations (micromol/l); 2) classification of concentration levels (i.e. low, moderate, high) and 3) trends in winter oxidised nitrogen (nitrate + nitrite) and phosphate concentration (micromol/l)in the regional seas of Europe.
Levels and trends of winter concentrations of dissolved inorganic nutrients are used for this indicator, as it is assumed that winter concentrations are not significantly reduced due to uptake by primary producers.
The winter period is defined as follows:
The used regional and subregional seas of Europe are in line with the geographical regions and sub-regions specified in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Other European Seas (Icelandic Sea, The Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea and the White Sea) are not covered in this indicator due to current lack of data.
Concentrations in micromol/l
Measures to reduce the adverse effects of excess anthropogenic inputs of nutrients and protect the coastal and marine environment are being taken as a result of various initiatives at all levels - global, European, regional (i.e. through Regional Sea Conventions and/or regional Ministerial Conferences), and national.
There are a number of EU Directives aimed at reducing the loads and impacts of nutrients, including the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) - aimed at the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources; the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC) - aimed at reducing pollution from sewage treatment works and from certain industries; the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (96/61/EEC) - aimed at controlling and preventing pollution of water from industry; the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) - which requires the achievement of good ecological status or good ecological potential of transitional and coastal waters across the EU by 2015 and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC) which requires the achievement or maintenance of good environmental status in European seas by the year 2020 at the latest, through the adoption of national marine strategies based on 11 qualitative descriptors.
Additional measures arise from international initiatives and policies including: the UN Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine environment against Land-Based Activities; the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) 1975; the Helsinki Convention 1992 (HELCOM); the OSPAR Convention 1998; and the Black Sea Environmental Programme (BSEP) 1993.
The most pertinent EU target with regard to concentrations of nutrients in water arises from the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, where one of the environmental objectives is to achieve good ecological status. Member States have defined water-type specific environmental standards to support the achievement of good ecological status.
As natural and background concentrations of nutrients vary between and within the regional seas, and between types of coastal water bodies, nutrient targets or thresholds for achieving good ecological status have to be determined while taking into account local conditions.
Within the scope of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, nutrient levels (nutrient concentrations in the water column and nutrient ratios for nitrogen, phosphorus and silica, where appropriate), are the relevant criteria and indicators in marine waters under Descriptor 5: Human-induced eutrophication. The assessment of eutrophication in marine waters needs to combine information on nutrient levels as well as a range of ecologically relevant primary effects and secondary effects, taking into account relevant temporal scales. The nutrient targets and thresholds for achieving good environmental status are expected to be defined by 2013.
Other relevant regional targets related to nutrient pollution are:
The data used in this indicator is part of the WISE - State of the Environment (SoE) data, available in Waterbase - TCM (Transitional, Coastal and Marine) waters. Waterbase is the generic name given to EEA´s database on status, quality and quantity of Europe´s water resources. Waterbase – TCM waters contains data collected both from EEA member countries (i.e. belonging to the EIONET) and from the Regional Seas Conventions through the WISE-SoE TCM data collection process (WISE-SoE was formerly known as Eionet-Water and Eurowaternet). The resulting WISE SoE TCM dataset is therefore made of sub-samples of national data assembled for the purpose of providing comparable indicators of state and impact of transitional, coastal and marine waters () on a Europe-wide scale.
Levels and trends of winter concentrations of dissolved inorganic nutrients are used for this indicator, as it is assumed that winter concentrations are not significantly reduced due to uptake by primary producers.
Annual winter concentrations of Nitrogen and Phosphate, and classification of concentration levels
The primary aggregation consists of:
1. Identifying stations and assigning them to countries and sea regions
All geographical positions defined in the data are assigned to a sea region by coordinates. The used regional and subregional seas of Europe are in line with the geographical regions and sub-regions specified in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) (see below). Other European Seas (Icelandic Sea, The Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea and the White Sea) are not covered by this indicator due to current lack of data. Also, because of the limited amount of data, only the following (sub)regions are distinguished in the maps: Baltic Sea, Celtic Seas, Greater North Sea, Bay of Biscay and Iberian coast, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea.
| Regional Sea | Subregional Sea |
|---|---|
| Baltic Sea | None |
|
North East Atlantic Ocean |
Greater North Sea Celtic Seas Bay of Biscay and the Iberian coast Macaronesian region |
| Mediterranean Sea |
Western Mediterranean Sea Adriatic Sea Ionian Sea and Central Mediterranean Aegan - Levantine Sea |
| Black Sea | none |
The stations are then further classified as coastal or off-shore (>20 km from coast) by checking them against the coastal contour. Off-shore stations – open seas - are distinguished per sub-regional sea, whereas coastal stations are further attributed to country. These classifications are done in ArcView. Smaller regions within the regional and sub-regional seas described above are used in the aggregation process of different determinants.
EIONET stations
WISE SoE TCM data reported directly from countries are assigned to station identifiers (i.e. EIONET stations) that are listed with coordinates. For these data, which are mostly along the coast of the reporting country, stations are kept as defined.
Regional Seas Conventions data
For the data reported through the Regional Sea Conventions (and assembled by ICES), there are no consistent station identifiers available in the reported data, only geographical positions (latitude/longitude). The reported coordinates for what is intended to be the same station may vary between visits, because the exact achieved position is recorded, not the target position. Identifying station on exact position may therefore fragment time series too much.
Furthermore, duplicates between Eionet and RSC data may occur for coastal stations. A visual inspection of coastal data (< 20 km from shoreline) is therefore needed to eliminate these duplicates. For the open waters (>20 km from shoreline) coordinates are rounded to 2 decimals, and this is used to create stations (i.e. for the purpose of establishing time series) with station names derived from rounded coordinates. As coordinates for the stations are used averages over visits to the station, rather than the rounded coordinates. This ensures that in cases where most observations are in a tight cluster within the rounding area, a position within the cluster is used. The open water observations are not assigned to countries, but listed as belonging to 'Open waters' in the Country column, without reference to country.
For the coastal ICES stations, there may be overlap with Eionet stations, and for the stations close to the coast, rounding coordinates to 2. decimal may be too much (about 500 m to 1 km). However, in this update, the rounding is done also for coastal stations, but the grouping of observations to rounded coordinates is done only within observations from each country separately, and the originator country is listed. Note that these stations are not necessarily close to the coast of the originator country.
2. Annual concentration of N and P per station
The statistical aggregation for calculating annual concentrations for Nitrogen (i.e. Nitrates, Nitrites and Total Oxidised Nitrogen) and Phosphate (i.e. Orthophosphates) is done in two- or three-stage query sequences, which include:
The basic data consists of two tables:
| Measurement values table |
|---|
| WaterbaseID (Country and Station) |
| Date (Year, Month and Day) |
| SampleDepth |
| SampleID |
| Determinant, with Determinant codes "Nitrate", "Nitrite", "Total oxidised nitrogen" and "Orthophosphate". |
| Stations table |
|---|
| Unique identifier: data provider, Country and Station ID |
| Position |
| Sea region (Atlantic, North Sea, Baltic, Mediterranean and the Black Sea) |
The two tables are combined in a query which joins data to stations, linked by WaterbaseID, and including Country Code and Sea Region (used in Selection Criteria below). This query (or a table made from it) is used in the Aggregate queries.
| Description of specific aggregation query sequences | Nitrogen and Phosphate |
|---|---|
| Step 1 |
Crosstable query, with determinands "Nitrate", "Nitrite", "Total oxidised nitrogen" and "Orthophosphate" as columns, and row heading Sea Region, WaterbaseID, Year, Month, and SampleDepth. |
| Step 2 |
For each combination of WaterbaseID*Year*Month*Day, calculate [Total Oxidised Nitrogen]: Calculate best possible estimate of nitrate including nitrite:Oxidised Nitrogen is equal to Total Oxidised Nitrogen if Total Oxidised Nitrogen is measured, else calculate Oxidised Nitrogen equal to sum of Nitrate and Nitrite. Aggregate arithmetic mean of Oxidised Nitrogen and Orthophosphate over depths. |
| Step 3 |
For each combination of WaterbaseID *Year, calculate the arithmetic mean over the depth averages from Step 2. |
3. Classification of N and P concentration levels, for each station
For each (sub)regional sea, the observed concentrations are classified as Low, Moderate or High. Concentrations are classified as Low when they are lower than the 20-percentile value of concentrations within a (sub)region. Concentrations are classified as High when they are higher than the 80-percentile value of concentrations within a (sub)region. The classification boundaries therefore change between regional and/or sub-regional seas.
Trend analysis of Nitrogen and Phosphate concentrations
Consistent time series are used as the basis for assessment of changes over time. The trend analyses are based on time series from 1985 onwards. Selected stations must have at least data in the last four years of the current assessment (2007 or later), and 5 or more years in the overall assessment period (since 1985). For nitrogen nutrients nitrate+nitrite is used, but gaps may be populated with nitrate alone to complete the time series.. Trend detection for each time series was done with the Mann-Kendall Statistics using a two-sided test with a significance level of 5% (Sokal & Rohlf, 1995).
The Mann-Kendall method is a non-parametric test suggested by Mann (1945) and has been extensively used for environmental time series (Helsel and Hirsch, 2002; Hipel and McLeod, 2005). Mann-Kendall is a test for monotonic trend in a time series y(x), which in this analysis is nutrient concentration (y) as a function of year (x). The test is based on Kendall's rank correlation, which measures the strength of monotonic association between the vectors x and y. In the case of no ties in the x and y variables, Kendall's rank correlation coefficient, tau, may be expressed as tau=S/D where S = sum {i<j} (sign(x[j]-x[i])*sign(y[j]-y[i])) and D = n(n-1)/2. S is called the score and D, the denominator, is the maximum possible value of S. The p-value of tau is computed by an algorithm given by Best and Gipps (1974). The tests reported here are two-sided (testing for both increasing and decreasing trends). Data series with p-value < 0.05 are reported as significantly increasing or decreasing. The test analyzes only the direction and significance of the change, not the size of the change.
For oxidized nitrogen, the sum of nitrate and nitrite is used. However, if nitrite values are not available, gaps may be populated by assuming that oxidized nitrogen is equivalent to the prevalent nitrate fraction, in order to complete the time series.
The Mann-Kendall test for the detection of trends is a robust and accepted approach. However, due to the multiple trend analyses, approximately 5% of the tests conducted will turn out significant if in fact there is no trend. Also, the accuracy at the regional level is largely influenced by the number of stations for which data is available.
There are also a number of uncertainties related to temporal and spatial use of the data. Currently, the winter period is defined as January and February for all stations except for stations east of longitude 15 degrees (Bornholm) in the Baltic Sea. However, this definition may be too broad to reflect the climatic differences across the European sea regions. For example, for the Black Sea, it is suggested to also consider spring concentrations due to the nutrient enrichment of coastal waters as a result of increased riverine inputs (BSC, 2010).
Moreover, two types of geographical aggregation are performed in the current methodology, based on the Country Code and Sea Region. In both cases, differences in physical, chemical and biological characteristics between sampling stations are not taken into account. Measured nutrient concentrations should be related to natural background values that reflect spatial/geographical differences. Furthermore, data collected over the different years is obtained from different laboratories, possibly following different methodologies,,and it is being combined in the same trend analysis. This might influence the results as well.
Data for this assessment is still scarce considering the large spatial and temporal variations inherent to the European transitional, coastal and marine waters. Long stretches of European coastal waters are not covered in the analysis due to lack of data or sufficiently long and recent time series.
Trend analyses are only consistent for the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, for which data is updated yearly within the OSPAR and HELCOM conventions, as well as for some stations in Croatian coastal waters.
Due to variations in freshwater discharges and the hydro-geographic variability of the coastal zone and internal cycling processes, trends in nutrient concentrations as such cannot be directly related to measures taken in nearby river basins. However, overall trends reflect the effects of measures to reduce nutrient pollution.
Work specified here requires to be completed within 1 year from now.
Work specified here will require more than 1 year (from now) to be completed.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/nutrients-in-transitional-coastal-and or scan the QR code.
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