Data centre overview

The WISE Water Framework Directive database contains data from the 1st and 2nd River Basin Management Plans reported by EU Members States, Norway and the United Kingdom according to article 13 of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The database includes information about surface water bodies (number and size, water body category, ecological status or potential, chemical status, significant pressures and impacts, and exemptions) and about groundwater bodies (number and size, quantitative status, chemical status, significant pressures and impacts, and exemptions). The information is presented by country, river basin district (RBD) and river basin district sub-unit (where applicable).

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Drought is a recurrent feature of the European climate that affects considerable fractions of the European population each year. The frequency and severity of meteorological and hydrological droughts have increased in most parts of Europe. Different drought indices agree that the increase is greatest in southern Europe. Available studies project further increases in the frequency, duration and severity of meteorological and hydrological droughts for most of Europe during the 21st century, except for parts of central-eastern and north-eastern Europe. The greatest increase in drought conditions is projected for southern Europe where it will increase competition between different water users, such as agriculture, industry, tourism and households.

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"Driest month" refers to the month with the lowest river flow in each year. The computation of trends follows the methodology described in Gudmundsson et al. (2019, doi:10.1029/2018gl079725). Analysis is based on the E-RUN data set (Gudmundsson & Seneviratne, 2016, doi:10.5194/essd-​8-279-2016).

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Hatching indicates the areas in which the trends are statistically significant at the 95 % percent level.

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This viewer provides statistics on spatial extent and land use distribution of floodplain areas of Europe. Here, floodplains are defined as the flood prone area, i.e. the area that would be flooded during a 100-year flood, if there were no flood protection in place. Most flood prone areas are, however, protected against flooding. The statistics are presented in a series of dashboards providing an overview of floodplain characteristics, by country, by river basin districts, and in Natura 2000 sites. The statistics include the extent of floodplains, their ecosystem distribution based on MAES classification and the Copernicus Riparian Zone Products, as well as land cover flows between 2000 and 2018.

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The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are the largest bodies of ice in the world and play an important role in the global climate system. Both ice sheets have been losing mass at an increasing rate since the 1990s, which has contributed one third of the global sea level rise over this period. The cumulative ice loss from Greenland from 1992 to 2017 was 3 900 billion tonnes, which contributed approximately 11 mm of the global sea level rise; the corresponding figures for Antarctica are 2 600 billion tonnes, equivalent to a 7 mm contribution. All studies project further declines in the polar ice sheets in the future, but the degree of uncertainty is large. For a high-emissions scenario, it is estimated that the melting of the polar ice sheets will contribute up to 50 cm of global sea level rise during the 21st century and several metres in the very long term (several centuries to a millennium).

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The figure shows the cumulative ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from recent studies, weighted according to the primary satellite data source following the approach of the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (The IMBIE team, 2018, doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0179-y; The IMBIE team, 2019, doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1855-2). The shaded uncertainty intervals are estimated from the standard deviation of the individual studies.

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The EEA potential flood prone area extent delineates the area that is flooded once every 100 years, i.e. the probability of flooding is 1% assuming that flooding is unrestricted. The potential flood prone area is comprised of the river channel and floodplain. In reality, the floodplain is split into an active floodplain where flooding still occurs, and former floodplain where flooding is restricted due to flood protection. The former floodplain could be flooded again either if a flood exceeds the capacity of flood protection, or if factors that control the presence of water were removed. These factors include channel and floodplain morphological alterations as well as structural flood protection measures. The spatial coverage of the data set is EEA39 countries.

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The map shows the temporal development of the distribution of warm-favouring (Lusitanian) fish species and of cool-favouring (Boreal) fish species by statistical area in yearly intervals, 1967 to 2018.

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Note: Logarithmic scale; PM: substances that are Persistent and Mobile.

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The map reflects the most recent available information at the EU-level on implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) in EU 28 plus Iceland based on data reported by the Member States (for reference year 2016) in 2018.

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Drought is a recurrent feature of the European climate that affects considerable fractions of the European population each year. The frequency and severity of meteorological and hydrological droughts have increased in most parts of Europe. Different drought indices agree that the increase is greatest in southern Europe. Available studies project further increases in the frequency, duration and severity of meteorological and hydrological droughts for most of Europe during the 21st century, except for parts of central-eastern and north-eastern Europe. The greatest increase in drought conditions is projected for southern Europe where it will increase competition between different water users, such as agriculture, industry, tourism and households.

Read more

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are the largest bodies of ice in the world and play an important role in the global climate system. Both ice sheets have been losing mass at an increasing rate since the 1990s, which has contributed one third of the global sea level rise over this period. The cumulative ice loss from Greenland from 1992 to 2017 was 3 900 billion tonnes, which contributed approximately 11 mm of the global sea level rise; the corresponding figures for Antarctica are 2 600 billion tonnes, equivalent to a 7 mm contribution. All studies project further declines in the polar ice sheets in the future, but the degree of uncertainty is large. For a high-emissions scenario, it is estimated that the melting of the polar ice sheets will contribute up to 50 cm of global sea level rise during the 21st century and several metres in the very long term (several centuries to a millennium).

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Over the last 45 years, an increase in the number of fish species was observed in the Celtic Sea, the Greater North Sea and the Baltic Sea.  This change is mainly related to an increase in the number of warm-favouring (Lusitanian, L) species and, to a much lesser extent, an increase in the number of cool-favouring (Boreal, B) species. Observed changes are significant in the North Sea and in the Skagerrak-Kattegat, where significant correlations were also found between the L/B ratio and increased temperature, indicating that changes in fish distribution are related to climate change. In the same period, there were no observed changes in the distribution of widely distributed fish species, which are less sensitive to temperature changes but are exposed to the same combination of increased sea temperature pressures related to human activities in the assessment areas.

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This viewer provides statistics on spatial extent and land use distribution of floodplain areas of Europe. Here, floodplains are defined as the flood prone area, i.e. the area that would be flooded during a 100-year flood, if there were no flood protection in place. Most flood prone areas are, however, protected against flooding. The statistics are presented in a series of dashboards providing an overview of floodplain characteristics, by country, by river basin districts, and in Natura 2000 sites. The statistics include the extent of floodplains, their ecosystem distribution based on MAES classification and the Copernicus Riparian Zone Products, as well as land cover flows between 2000 and 2018.

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The map shows the temporal development of the distribution of warm-favouring (Lusitanian) fish species and of cool-favouring (Boreal) fish species by statistical area in yearly intervals, 1967 to 2018.

Read more

The map reflects the most recent available information at the EU-level on implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) in EU 28 plus Iceland based on data reported by the Member States (for reference year 2016) in 2018.

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The WISE Water Framework Directive map contains information from the 2nd River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) reported by EU Members States and Norway according to article 13 of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The maps include the River Basin Districts (RBDs) and their sub-units, the surface water bodies (water body category, ecological status or potential and chemical status), the groundwater bodies (aquifer type, quantitative status and chemical status) and the monitoring sites.

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Hatching indicates the areas in which the trends are statistically significant at the 95 % percent level.

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"Driest month" refers to the month with the lowest river flow in each year. The computation of trends follows the methodology described in Gudmundsson et al. (2019, doi:10.1029/2018gl079725). Analysis is based on the E-RUN data set (Gudmundsson & Seneviratne, 2016, doi:10.5194/essd-​8-279-2016).

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A case study example of floodplain habitat change following the first drainage and straightening, and the later restoration of a river in western Denmark. The River Skjern was channelised in 1968 and in 1999-2003 the river was restaurated. The orthophoto mosaics shows the situation before the restauration (1992) and after (2018).

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The figure shows the cumulative ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from recent studies, weighted according to the primary satellite data source following the approach of the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (The IMBIE team, 2018, doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0179-y; The IMBIE team, 2019, doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1855-2). The shaded uncertainty intervals are estimated from the standard deviation of the individual studies.

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Note: Logarithmic scale; PM: substances that are Persistent and Mobile.

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Total pollutant emissions to water and transfers to UWWTPs by industry from 2007 to 2017 by pollutant group

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