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Environmental legislations
This section presents an overview of the European water related policies, focusing on their main scope and reporting process. It introduces the state of European freshwater section, where the outcomes - when possible - of the policies’ assessments are described.
Chemical status by country
These charts show the percentages of surface water bodies in good, unknown and failing to achieve good chemical status (by number of water bodies). Hover over the bars to see percentages. The top chart shows chemical status while the lower chart shows chemical status without uPBTs. It is possible to select 1st, 2nd and 3rd River Basin Management Plan through the drop down filter. uPBTs were not defined for the 1st RBMP, so are not shown. Some countries show high failure rates for chemical status which become good chemical status when uPBTs are not considered. There are high levels of unknown chemical status for some countries.
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Ecological and chemical status
Comparison of surface water bodies' ecological and chemical status with uPBT (ubiquitous, persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic) substances, in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd River Basin Management Plan, by country. These charts show the ecological and chemical status of surface water bodies, by country. Percentages of surface water bodies in high, good, unknown, moderate poor or bad ecological status, and in good, unknown and failing to achieve good chemical status are shown (by number of water bodies). Hover over the bars to see percentages. It is possible to select 1st, 2nd and 3rd River Basin Management Plan through the drop down filter. Failing to achieve good chemical status might be expected to correspond to failing ecological status. That relationship is not always obvious.
Priority substances causing failure to achieve good chemical status
Under the Water Framework Directive, the chemical status of surface waters is assessed based on a Europe-wide list of priority substances. Environmental quality standards (EQS), set to protect the most sensitive species, provide the threshold to assess status. If one EQS is exceeded, the water body fails to meet good chemical status.