1) Data model

The data set follows the WISE spatial data model described in the WISE GIS guidance, available at http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/help/WFD/WFD_521_2016/GISGuidance/WISE_GISGuidance.pdf

The formal specification is available at http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/help/WFD/WFD_521_2016/UML/GML_Schemas_6.0.6.zip

The shapefile templates are available at http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/help/WFD/WFD_521_2016/Shapes/Shapefiles_6.0.6.zip

Refer to the WISE GIS guidance for the mapping between the GML elements in the XML schema and the corresponding fields in Shapefile format.

Refer to the Technical Report which accompanies the data set for information on the additional fields present in the shapefiles: cYear, country, lat, lon, statusCode, statusDate, remarks and qcCheck.

2) Data sources

Information on river basin districts and sub-units was submitted under the "Water Framework Directive - River Basin Districts and Competent Authorities" [Article 3] reporting obligation ( http://rod.eionet.europa.eu/obligations/525). Data originally delivered in 2004 and 2005 was moved to the Central Data Repository ( http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/), which contains information from the EU-28 Member States plus Norway, reported between 2007-03-11 and 2012-06-22 (including resubmissions and updates).

Information on surface water bodies (rivers, lakes, transitional and coastal water bodies - including artificial and heavily modified water bodies), groundwater bodies and protected areas was reported under the "Water Framework Directive - Characterisation of River Basin Districts" [Article 5] reporting obligation ( http://rod.eionet.europa.eu/obligations/136). Data originally delivery in 2004 and 2005 was moved to the Central Data Repository ( http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/), which contains information from the EU-28 Member States (except Croatia, Greece, Malta and Romania), plus Norway, reported between 2005-01-26 and 2011-09-26 (including resubmissions and updates).

Information on monitoring sites was reported under the "Water Framework Directive - Monitoring Programmes" [Article 8] reporting obligation ( http://rod.eionet.europa.eu/obligations/520). The Central Data Repository ( http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/) contains information from the EU-28 Member States (except Croatia and Malta) reported between 2007-03-16 and 2012-03-21 (including resubmissions and updates).

For some countries or river basin districts, updates to the spatial data were submitted under "Water Framework Directive - River Basin Management Plans - 2010 Reporting" [Article 13] reporting obligation ( http://rod.eionet.europa.eu/obligations/521). The reporting of the 1st River Basin Management Plans was first due in 2010-03-23. The Central Data Repository ( http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/) contains information from the EU-28 Member States plus Norway, reported between 2009-09-14 and 2016-03-17 (including resubmissions and updates).

The data sources above will hereafter be referred to as WFD2010.

For the 2nd River Basin Management Plans, spatial data was reported under the "Water Framework Directive - River Basin Management Plans - 2016 Spatial data" (hereafter WFD2016). See http://rod.eionet.europa.eu/obligations/717 for further information on the reporting.

Refer to the Technical Report which accompanies the data set the full list of CDR data sets.

3) Data processing

The data reported in WFD2010 were updated using data reported in WFD2016, whenever the spatial objects are identical in 2010 and 2016.

Identical objects have wiseEvolutionType in ('noChange','changeCode','change').

For WFD2010 objects, some information may be missing, if the objects no longer exist in the 2nd River Basin Management Plans, and were not reported in WFD2016. Objects that no longer exist in 2016 have wiseEvolutionType = 'deletion'.

Refer to the Technical Report which accompanies the data set for further information.

4) Data quality

THIS DATASET DOES NOT FULLY COMPLY WITH THE WISE SPATIAL DATA MODEL SPECIFICATION.

The reason for non-compliance is that not all the information required by the WISE spatial data model was requested in the WFD2010 reporting. Where available, the missing information was compiled from the WFD2010 non-spatial reporting or from the WFD2016 reporting.

All objects reported in the WFD2010 non-spatial data files are included in the current dataset. The geometry of the objects was obtained from the spatial data files, where available. A conventional geometry was included for the objects for which only the location of the representative point was available.

Note that:

- The WFD2010 reporting requested only the location of a representative point (for example, a centroid) for some objects, e.g. for water bodies. For example, the WFD2010 spatial data files include the geometry of large water bodies, but normally do not include smaller water bodies.

- The WFD2010 spatial data files sometimes include the geometry of objects that were not later reported as water bodies (i.e. as units of management for the 1st RBMP). Spatial objects without equivalence in the non-spatial reporting were excluded from the current dataset.

- The WFD2010 spatial data files were reported as shapefiles and were not subject to automated quality control upon delivery, automated harvest, or version-control management. Partial updates (per dataset and per river basin district) where submitted until 2016-03-17.

Traceability from a spatial object in the dataset to a specific data element and data file in a Central Data Repository delivery is not possible. Specific issues or inconsistencies were clarified with the support of the WFD2016 national reporting contacts.

No geometric or topological error correction was performed.

Basic automated editing of string values (upper-casing, trimming, removal of invalid characters or values) was performed.

The compliance of the identifiers of the spatial objects with the requirements of the WFD2016 was verified.

Thematic identifiers must start with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code, except for Greece ('EL') and the United Kingdom ('UK').

Thematic identifiers must comply with the following Regex pattern: ^[A-Z]{2}[0-9A-Z]{1}([0-9A-Z_-]{0,38}[0-9A-Z]{1}){0,1}$

A valid identifier was proposed for each invalid identifier. The changes can be traced via the WISE registers.