Report on Harmonisation of freshwater biological methods

100. The information received from the national representatives in the ECOSTATWG2A on the state of compatibility of their national classification methods with theWFD requirements can be summarized as follows (see also table in Annex VIII):• aquatic flora, Lithuania and Sweden are in the process of developing WFDcompatible classifications;• benthic invertebrates, UK method is declared to be WFD compatible;• phytoplankton, Austria and Sweden have developed WFD compatibleclassifications but only for some lake types, while Latvia has now estimatedpreliminary reference conditions for lakes in the country;• Fish, UK, as well as other countries, is on the way of developing a WFDcompatible classification method;• Macrophytes and phytobenthos, Germany has developed a classificationmethod with these two elements that is considered WFD compatible;• Aquatic plants and benthic invertebrates, UK has developed a classificationmethod with these two elements that is considered WFD compatible.B. Rivers101. In terms of metric requirements by the WFD, these are met for phytobenthosas all countries include in their methods a measurement of taxonomic compositionand abundance. The overview shows, that at the moment, some countries aremodifying their own assessment methods for phytobenthos in order to fill the gaps(Austria, Germany and Spain) or have new methods under development that willinclude these requirements (Portugal). Norway and the Netherlands have assessmentmethods that respect the parameters to be measured for the WFD, but these are notrelated with reference conditions.102. This is not the case for phytoplankton, methods include taxonomiccomposition and abundance, but no reference to recording of the planktonic bloomsthat is required by the Directive for this biological element. For phytoplankton, noneof the assessment methods are WFD compatible.25