Waterbase

This page provides a description and a link to a "Waterbase" database that provides information needed when modeling exposure levels or performing exposure assessment.

Short description

Waterbase is the generic name given to the EEA's databases on the status and quality (pesticides in grounf water, nutrients and organic matter) of Europe's rivers, lakes, groundwater bodies and transitional, coastal and marine waters, and on the quantity of Europe's water resources. Waterbase contains timely, reliable and policy-relevant data collected from EEA member countries through the Eionet-Water (formerly known as Eurowaternet) process. Eionet-Water selects validated monitoring data from national databases and adds information on the physical characteristics of the water bodies being monitored and on the pressures potentially affecting water quality. The added value of Waterbase is that data collected through the Eionet-Water process are from statistically stratified monitoring stations and groundwater bodies and are comparable at the European level.

Link

http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data#c5=all&b_start=0&c9=waterbase&c11=water

Long description

Waterbase is the name of a grouping of European Environment Agency (EEA) databases on status and quality of Europe's rivers, lakes, groundwater bodies and transitional, coastal and marine waters, as well as the quantity of Europe's water resources. It is maintained by the European Topic Centre on Water (ETC/WTR). The information held in this database is available as raw data.

Data for Waterbase is gathered firstly as a means of collating data in preparation for the production of indicator-based fact sheets published by the EEA and, secondly, as a way of generating data suitable for comparison at the European level. Waterbase data are collected by ETC/WTR from validated monitoring data held in national databases, to which it adds information relating to physical characteristics of monitored water bodies and on pressures potentially affecting water quality.

Reporting is voluntary and operated under the European Environment Information and Observation Network (EIONET). A total of 32 European countries participate in this programme. These include the EU 25 (with the exception of Cyprus), EFTA 4 (with the exception of Switzerland), Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.

The database covers 49 different water-related indicators. Data are also available on water quantity in groundwater reserves, transitional, coastal and marine water reserves, as well as rivers and lakes.

Groundwater data are downloadable as Excel spreadsheets that include not only the physical details of groundwater bodies, but also groundwater concentrations of certain pesticides, organic matter and nutrients. Similar data is available for rivers and lakes. Pesticides in groundwater are atrazine, lindane and simazine.

The availability of data varies between datasets e.g. groundwater quality data are available from 1960 to 2004 (although with variation in geographical resolution etc.). Other datasets may be considerably ‘younger’ than this. Certain water quality data are accompanied with basic descriptive statistics. The data are fully accessible from the EEA website and downloadable as tables in various file formats. While temporal and spatial resolutions of the data are good, there are no data on water abstraction and use here, on the methods used to treat water for drinking or on concentrations of pollutants in drinking water itself.

Key words

pesticides, nutrients, organic matter, surface water, ground water, water bodies, lakes, rivers, sea, water quality, transitional water, coastal waters, marine waters, surface water