Assessment of the effectiveness of reported water framework directive programmes of measures : Part III: JRC Pressure Indicators v.2.0 : nutrients, urban runoff, flow regime and hydromorphological alteration

This report illustrates a system of indicators (called JRC Water Pressure Indicators) providing a consistent picture of human pressures on water bodies at European scale, to be compared with pressure and status information reported by Member States under the Water Framework Directive 60/2000/EC. The indicators represent "version 2.0" of a "version 1.0" published before. This "version 2.0" was introduced in Pistocchi et al. (2017) and includes nutrients, urban runoff, hydromorphological and flow regime alterations, and in particular: - an updated GREEN model setup for estimating nitrogen and phosphorus load to European surface waters; - the updated indicators of morphological alteration of floodplains produced with the Copernicus riparian zones layer; - the indicators of flow regime perturbation and river continuity disruption, due to dams and other stream barriers in Europe, computed on the basis of a new dataset compiled by the JRC; the indicators of flow regime alteration due to abstractions, using estimates of demand for irrigation, livestock, domestic and industrial water use and cooling of energy production plants, and information on natural water availability simulated with a calibrated LISFLOOD model. A relevant change from version 1.0 to version 2.0 is the spatial support of the indicators. While in version 1.0 the indicators were computed at the level of HydroEurope (HE1) subbasins, i.e. polygons of an average size of 180 km2, or on grids of 5 km or 1 km resolution (see Pistocchi et al., 2015, for details) and aggregated at the river basin district (RBD) scale, in version 2.0 all indicators are computed on the HydroEurasia (HE2) subbasins. These coincide with the elementary subbasins identified in the CCM2 hydrography, consisting of the subdivision of Europe and surrounding river basins into smaller polygons (average size about 7 km2). Each polygon represents a subbasin and is univocally associated to the main hydrographic segment (river stretch) it contains. The indicators presented here reflect the best knowledge available at the JRC from both compiled European datasets and in-house model simulations. They are designed to be updated when more complete or higher-quality information is made available. Data and model limitations are highlighted for each indicator, either in this report or in Pistocchi et al., 2017.