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The European continent is made up of several million kilometres of flowing water and more than a million lakes. Europe is surrounded by nine sea basins: the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, the Caspian Sea, the White Sea, the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the North Atlantic Ocean.
All these waters have their own characteristics and environmental problems. The climatic conditions of the catchment area, for example rain, bedrock geology and soil type all influence the water flow and the mineral content of the water. Similarly, human activity affects surface water and groundwater through afforestation, urbanisation, land drainage, pollutant discharge and flow regulation (i.e. dams and channelisation).
The assessment of the environmental state of European surface waters comprises the collection and aggregation of a huge amount of information. It serves four purposes:
Reliable, high quality information about the environmental state of surface waters is essential for water management and for improving the environmental quality of Europe’s waters, especially in relation to the Water Framework Directive.
Monitoring and assessment of the environmental state of European waters are performed by numerous regional and national authorities. Results from national monitoring programmes and monitoring at river basin district scale under the Water Framework Directive are the most important ways of getting an overview of Europe's water quality and the pressures affecting the quality.
The EEA has outlined the following types of state of the environment (SOE) assessments of Europe's waters to be carried out:
The EEA data and information needs for SOE assessments of Europe's waters come exclusively from national monitoring networks set up for a variety of purposes, e.g. for the Water Framework Directive. The monitoring network established by the EEA with its member countries is further described in Eionet-water.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/archived/archived-content-water-topic/status-and-monitoring/intro-2013-overview or scan the QR code.
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