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For surface waters, good chemical status means that no concentrations of priority substances exceed the relevant Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) as established in the Environmental Quality Standards Directive 2008/105/EC. EQS aim to protect the most sensitive species from direct toxicity, including predators and humans via secondary poisoning.
A smaller group of priority hazardous substances were identified in the Priority Substances Directive as uPBT (ubiquitous, persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic). The uPBTs are mercury, brominated diphenyl ethers (pBDE), tributyltin and certain polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The dashboards below provide an overview of the different results related to chemical status.

In this page:

1. Surface water bodies: Priority substances (2nd RBMP) [overview chart]

2. Surface water bodies: Priority substances (2nd RBMP) [table]

3. Chemical status - charts (with or without uPBTs) by category

4. Chemical status - charts (with or without uPBTs) by country

5. Chemical status - map (with or without uPBTs) by RBD

6. Surface water bodies: Chemical status (2nd and 1st RBMP), by category [chart]

7. Surface water bodies: Chemical status (2nd and 1st RBMP), by country [chart]

8. Chemical status - overview table

9. Surface water bodies: River basin specific pollutants

Other WFD dashboards:

  • Surface water chemical status

Disclaimer
Caution is advised when comparing Member States and when comparing the first and second RBMPs, as the results are affected by the methods Member States have used to collect data and often cannot be compared directly.

More dashboards in the catalogue

References

Further information is provided in a Draft guide to dashboards on delineation of water bodies, in chapter 1 of the EEA report European waters – assessment of status and pressures 2018, and section 2.2 Characterisation of surface waters of the WFD 2016 reporting guidance.