Water quality and wastewater treatment: WISE interactive maps updated

A series of maps on water quality, updated with the latest information reported by countries, has been published by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The maps display water quality parameters in various receiving waters across Europe, alongside information on urban wastewater treatment and receiving areas sensitive to eutrophication.

The updated maps are useful for water professionals who require a European overview of water issues, or anyone with an interest in the environmental issues affecting their local river, lake or sea.

The new design is more compact and user friendly, easily switching between different pollutants for a given area. Four data viewers have been updated:

• transitional, coastal and marine waters (TCM), which includes several maps showing various parameters.
• rivers and lakes, with a new function for quickly shifting between maps for different pollutants.
• groundwater, with a new function allowing users to get national-level overviews for different years
• urban waste water, including more detailed designation criteria for sensitive areas.

As part of the package, there is also an updated and improved Geographic Information System (GIS) reference layer for river basin districts reporting under the Water Framework Directive. This can be downloaded by other organisations working in this area.

The maps are based on data reported by the EU Member States and EEA member countries. Since this latest update, all interactive maps in the Water Information System for Europe (WISE) have now been updated to the improved format.

Additional resources

• Water data centre
• Water Information System for Europe (WISE) portal