Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) in rivers

GIS Map Application Published 01 Mar 2015 Last modified 24 Mar 2019

1 min read

Topics: Water and marine environment ,

The map shows the mean annual value of BOD observed in river monitoring stations since 1993, reported by EEA member countries via WISE. BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand or Biochemical Oxygen Demand) is the amount of dissolved oxygen, expressed in milligrams of oxygen per litre of water, consumed by micro-organisms to decompose the organic matter present in water. BOD is commonly reported as BOD5, the amount of oxygen consumed over a 5-day period of incubation. Some countries report BOD7, the amount of oxygen consumed over a 7-day period. For comparability, the values of BOD7 are converted to BOD5 (BOD7 = 1.16 BOD5). Large quantities of organic matter (microbes and decaying organic waste) in water are a potential risk to aquatic ecosystems and human health. The reduction in the amount of dissolved oxygen as a result of the decomposition of organic matter can endanger aquatic life through asphyxiation and disrupt the ecological balance of the water. Organic matter can also pollute drinking water and bathing water. High levels of BOD can indicate such organic pollution. The purpose of the map is to provide an overview of the mean annual value of BOD in rivers across Europe and to enable the user to compare values per country, River Basin District (RBD) or individual monitoring station, depending on the scale of visualisation. Historical data since 1992 can be displayed using the time slider.

Note: this application cannot be embedded within the site since it does not run over https. Go directly to the application

Related content

Based on data

Waterbase - Rivers Waterbase is the generic name given to the EEA's databases on the status and quality of Europe's rivers, lakes, groundwater bodies and transitional, coastal and marine waters, and on the quantity of Europe's water resources

WISE WFD Database The WISE-WFD database contains data from River Basin Management Plans reported by EU Members States according to article 13 of the Water Framework Directive. The full database is quite complex and not yet made available for public download. However, a number of aggregation queries have been made, these aggregation queries extract data from the database and present it as data tables that can be downloaded in Excel format. Most of the reported data are considered final, however, in some cases they are considered provisional by Member States. The aggregation tables are updated when the underlying WFD Database is updated with new or corrected data. It is therefore important to associate the use of any information in the tables with the date in which data was retrieved. The tables are organised for an access at various levels of overviews versus details - aggregated at country, river basin district (RBD) or in some cases even RBD-subunit level.

Related briefings

Towards a more urban world (GMT 2)

Permalinks

Permalink to this version: 540c88dc61e74d61b8f5fcd815454cb8
Permalink to latest version: R3XM5OJT07

Geographic coverage

Austria , Belgium , Bulgaria , Croatia , Cyprus , Czech Republic , Denmark , Estonia , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , Hungary , Iceland , Ireland , Italy , Latvia , Liechtenstein , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Malta , Netherlands , Norway , Poland , Portugal , Romania , Slovakia , Slovenia , Spain , Sweden , Switzerland , Turkey , United Kingdom

Temporal coverage

Dynamic

Document Actions

For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/explore-interactive-maps/wise-soe-bod-in-rivers or scan the QR code.

PDF generated on 22 Jul 2019, 02:05 AM

BISE	Biodiversity Information System for Europe
Climate-ADAPT	Climate Adaptation Platform
Copernicus In Situ	Copernicus in situ component
Copernicus Land	Copernicus land monitoring

European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register	E-PRTR
Information Platform for Chemical Monitoring	IPCHEM
Marine Water Information System for Europe	WISE-Marine
Fresh Water Information System for Europe	WISE-FreshWater

Sections

Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) in rivers