Biochemical oxygen demand in rivers (2000-2022)

The key indicators for oxygenation of water bodies are biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), which is the amount of oxygen needed by microorganisms for aerobic decomposition of organic matter. The indicator illustrates temporal trends of BOD concentration in rivers and can be used to illustrate geographical variations in current nutrient concentrations and temporal trends.

Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is used to measure water quality. It refers to the amount of oxygen required by aerobic microorganisms to decompose organic substances in a water sample over a period of five days in the dark at 20°C (BOD5), measured as milligrams per litre (mg O2/L) and weighted by the number of measuring stations. High values of BOD5 are usually a sign of organic pollution, which affects the water quality. The cleanest rivers have BOD5 values of less than 1 mg O2/L, moderately and heavily polluted rivers show values ranging from 2 to 8 mg O2/L. Only complete series after inter/extrapolation are presented.

Simple

Date (Creation)
2024-12-19
Date (Publication)
2024-12-19
Date (Revision)
2025-05-22
Edition

01.00
Citation identifier
eea_s_eu-sdg-06-30_p_2000-2022_v01_r00
Code
10.2909/535026d0-6af8-49d2-9b1a-27caa6f203d7
Point of contact
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Website Role

European Environment Agency

sdi@eea.europa.eu

http://www.eea.europa.eu Point of contact

European Environment Agency

sdi@eea.europa.eu

Custodian

Point of contact

No information provided.

Point of contact

No information provided.

Point of contact

No information provided.
Maintenance and update frequency
Annually
Date of next update
2025-10
Keywords
    Keywords
      GEMET

      Continents, countries, sea regions of the world.

      • Spain

      • Romania

      • Belgium

      • Finland

      • Slovakia

      • Italy

      • Serbia

      • Czechia

      • North Macedonia

      • Austria

      • Bulgaria

      • Slovenia

      • Croatia

      • Poland

      • Estonia

      • Latvia

      • Lithuania

      • Cyprus

      • Albania

      • Ireland

      • EU27 (from 2020)
      Reporting obligations

      EEA Management Plan

      • 2024 1.1.16
      EEA topics

      Available breakdowns

      • Country

      Unit of measure

      • mg O2 per litre

      Reference period

      • Calendar year
      Use constraints
      Other restrictions
      Other constraints

      EEA standard re-use policy: unless otherwise indicated, re-use of content on the EEA website for commercial or non-commercial purposes is permitted free of charge, provided that the source is acknowledged ( http://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright). Copyright holder: European Environment Agency (EEA).

      Language of dataset
      English
      Begin date
      2000-01-01
      End date
      2022-12-31
      Distribution format
      • Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx) ( )

      • ascii (.csv, .txt, .sql) ( )

      OnLine resource
      Protocol Linkage Name

      EEA:FOLDERPATH

             		https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/webdav/datastore/public/eea_s_eu-sdg-06-30_p_2000-2022_v01_r00

      WWW:URL

             		https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/data/535026d0-6af8-49d2-9b1a-27caa6f203d7

      Direct download

      WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

             		https://www.eea.europa.eu/ims/oxygen-consuming-substances-in-european-rivers

      EEA Indicator WAT002 - Oxygen consuming substances in European rivers

      WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

             		https://discomap.eea.europa.eu/App/DiscodataViewer/?fqn=%5bmetadata%5d.%5bv2%5d.%5bmetadata%5d&parentIdentifier=%25WISE_Indicators%25v5r1%25&objectType=table,column

      Detailed metadata for each discodata table and column
      WWW:DOWNLOAD:ascii (.csv, .txt, .sql) https://discodata.eea.europa.eu/download/WISE_Indicators/v5r1/AggregatedData

      BOD5 in rivers - AggregatedData

      WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link

             		https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_06_30/default/table?lang=en

      Eurostat indicator: Biochemical oxygen demand in rivers

      OnLine resource

      No information provided.
      OnLine resource
      Protocol Linkage Name

      DOI

             		https://doi.org/10.2909/535026d0-6af8-49d2-9b1a-27caa6f203d7
      Hierarchy level
      Dataset

      Accuracy of time measurement

      Name of measure

      Frequency of dissemination
      Measure description

      Indicator is updated annually.

      Quantitative result

      Value
      Every year

      Accuracy of time measurement

      Name of measure

      Timeliness
      Measure description

      New data points are disseminated within two years after the reference year.

      Quantitative result

      Value
      T+2 years

      Quantitative attribute accuracy

      Name of measure

      Reference area
      Measure description

      Data are presented for all EU Member States except Denmark, Germany, Greece, France, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.

      Quantitative result

      Value
      < 75% EU MS or no EU aggregate

      Domain consistency

      Name of measure

      Comparability - geographical
      Measure description

      Data comparability between EU Member States respectively other presented countries is limited due to monitoring programs, including methodology and spatio-temporal sampling density, varying from country to country. The reporting is voluntary so countries do not necessarily report all available data.

      Quantitative result

      Value
      < 75% EU MS

      Domain consistency

      Name of measure

      Time coverage
      Measure description

      Presented time series (aggregate changing according to the context EU_V) starts in 2000.

      Quantitative result

      Value
      > 10 years

      Domain consistency

      Name of measure

      Comparability - over time
      Measure description

      Length of comparable time series without methodological break is longer than 4 data points.



      Only complete series after inter/extrapolation are presented.

      A major revision is expected by the end of 2025.

      Quantitative result

      Value
      > 4 data points
      Statement

      Based on the data from WISE-6 reporting, annual mean concentrations are used as a basis in the indicator analyses. Unless the country reports aggregated data, the aggregation to annual mean concentrations is done by the EEA.



      Automatic quality control procedures are applied both to the disaggregated and aggregated data, excluding data failing the tests from further analysis. In addition, a semi-manual procedure is applied, focusing on suspicious values having a major impact on the country time series and on the most recently reported data. This comprises e.g.:



      • outliers;

      • consecutive values deviating strongly from the rest of the time series;

      • whole time series deviating strongly in level compared to other time series for that country and determinand;

      • where values for a specific year are consistently far higher or lower than the remaining values for that country and determinand.



      Such values are removed from the analysis and checked with the country.



      For time series analyses, only complete series after inter/extrapolation are used. This is to ensure that the aggregated time series are consistent, i.e. including the same sites throughout. Inter/extrapolation of gaps up to 3 years are allowed, to increase the number of available time series. At the beginning or end of the data series, missing values are replaced by the first or last value of the original data series, respectively. In the middle of the data series, missing values are linearly interpolated. The selected time series are aggregated to country and European level by averaging across all sites for each year.

      Source

      Metadata

      File identifier
      535026d0-6af8-49d2-9b1a-27caa6f203d7 XML
      Metadata language
      English
      Character set
      UTF8
      Hierarchy level
      Tabular dataset
      Hierarchy level name

      Tabular dataset
      Date stamp
      2025-05-22T10:26:50.601379Z
      Metadata standard name

      ISO 19115/19139
      Metadata standard version

      1.0
      Metadata author
      Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Website Role

      European Environment Agency

      sdi@eea.europa.eu

      		Point of contact
       
       
      Access to the catalogue

      Overviews

      overview

      Keywords

      Available breakdowns

      Country
      EEA Management Plan

      2024 1.1.16
      EEA topics

      Pollution Sustainability Water
      GEMET

      biochemical oxygen demand organic pollution river statistical data sustainable development goals water quality
      Reference period

      Calendar year
      Reporting obligations

      WISE SoE - Water quality (WISE-6)
      Unit of measure

      mg O2 per litre


      Provided by

      Access to the catalogue