WISE provisional reference GIS Water Framework Directive (WFD) dataset on Groundwater Bodies - INTERNAL VERSION, Oct. 2012

A Groundwater Body (GWB) under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) Art. 2 is defined as a distinct volume of groundwater within an aquifer or aquifers, whereas an aquifer is defined as a geological layer with significant groundwater flow. This definition of a GWB allows a wide scope of interpretations.

EU Member States (MS) are under obligation to report the GWBs including the results of the GWB survey periodically according to the schedule of the WFD. Reportnet is used for the submission of GWB data to the EEA by MS and includes spatial data as GIS polygons and GWB characteristics in an XML schema.

The WISE provisional reference GIS WFD Dataset on GWBs combines spatial data consisting of several shape files and certain GWB attributes in a single table submitted by the MS according to Art. 13. The GWBs are divided into horizons, which represent distinct vertical layers of groundwater resources. All GWBs assigned to a certain horizon from one to five are merged into one shape file. GWBs assigned to horizons six or seven are combined in a single further shape file. Another two shape files comprise the GWBs of Reunion Island in the southern hemisphere and the GWBs from Switzerland as a non EU MS, all of which assigned to horizon 1.

The dbf tables of the shape files include the columns “EU_CD_GW” as the GWB identifier and “Horizon” describing the vertical positioning. The polygon identifier “Polygon_ID” was added subsequently, because some GWBs consist of several polygons with identical “EU_CD_GW”even in the same horizon.

Some further GWB characteristics are provided with the Microsoft Excel file “GWB_attributes_2012June.xls” including the column “EU_CD_GW”, which serves as a key for joining spatial and attribute data. There is no corresponding spatial data for GWBs in the Microsoft Excel table without an entry in column “EU_CD_GW”.

The spatial resolution is given for about a half of the GWBs in the column “Scale” of the xls file, which is varying between the MS from 1 : 10,000 to 1 : 1,000,000 and mostly in the range from 1 : 50,000 to 1 : 250,000.

The processing of some of the GWB shape files by GIS routines as clip or intersect in combination with a test polygon resulted in errors. Therefore a correction of erroneous topological features causing routine failures was carried out.

However, the GWB layer includes a multitude of in parts very tiny, distinct areas resulting in a highly detailed or fragmented pattern. In certain parts topological inconsistencies appear quite frequently and delineation methodologies are currently varying between the MS in terms of size and three dimensional positioning of GWBs.

This version of the dataset has to be considered as a first step towards a consistent GWB picture throughout Europe, but it is not yet of a sufficient quality to support spatial analyses i.e. it is not a fully developed reference GIS dataset. Therefore, the layer is published as a preliminary version and use of this data is subject to certain restrictions outlined in the explanatory notes.

It should be underlined that the methodology used is still under discussion (Working Group C -Groundwater) and is not fully harmonised throughout the EU MS.

For the external publication the whole United Kingdom has to be removed due to licensing restrictions.

Date (Creation): 2012-10-17

Citation identifier: eea_v_xxx_1_mio_wise-gwb_2009-2011

Status: Obsolete

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.

Maintenance and update frequency: Irregular

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Hydrography
Area management/restriction/regulation zones and reporting units

Keywords

GEMET

groundwater
aquifer
hydrography

EEA topics

Water

Use limitation: Data from UK not for dissemination.

Access constraints: Restricted

Use constraints: Restricted

Aggregate Datasetindentifier: b2a0e6f2-142c-4554-b6c1-ead08d6b88de

Association Type: Is composed of

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Aggregate Datasetindentifier: b8b0f93c-eaff-4fbd-83fa-b9e97581c9f9

Association Type: Is composed of

Spatial representation type: Vector

Denominator: 1000000

Language of dataset: English

Character set: UTF8

Topic category

Inland waters

Begin date: 2009-01-01

End date: 2011-12-31

Coordinate reference system identifier: EPSG:3035

Distribution format

Spatialite ( 1)

OnLine resource

No information provided.

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Explanation: See the referenced specification

Statement: Spatial data of GWBs was delivered by MS in a shape format, whereas many MS stored the data in separate shape files for River Basin Districts (RBD) or horizons or both. The attribute tables of the provided shape files always implied the mandatory fields of GWB code named “EU_CD_GW” and GWB horizon partially accompanied by varying extra columns defined by the Member States.

All GWBs had been merged into separate shape files according to their affiliation to horizons, but with extra shapes for Reunion and Switzerland. The attribute tables of these shape files exclusively adopt the fields “EU_CD_GW” and GWB. Because the GWB identifier “EU_CD_GW” is not unique for the polygons an artificial polygon identifier “Polygon_ID” is appended to the attribute table.

The linking between the shape files and the Microsoft Excel table GWB_attributes_2012June.xls, which comprises further attributes deriving from the WFD reporting via XML files, has to be carried out using the column EU_CD_GW as key for joining the tables.