Waterframework Directive and Eutrophication

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires Member States to classify their surface water bodies according to their ecological status. The ecological quality status of a water body can be classified as: high, good, moderate, poor or bad. The WFD further states that Member States should aim to restore the ecological quality status of all surface waters to good unless doing so would be unfeasible or disproportionately expensive.

One of the many different anthropogenic pressures that can effect the ecological status of water bodies is nutrient enrichment which causes electrification. Therefore, although the WFD does not use the term eutrophication, it does implicitly require Member States to remove anthropocentric eutrofic conditions from all inland and coastal surface waters.

Ecological Quality Status

The ecological status of a water body measures how much the aquatic ecosystem has been altered by anthropogenic influence. To judge this, one must compare the current condition with reference conditions which haven't been altered anthropologically. The difference in ecosystem conditions compared to these reference conditions is expressed by the 5 ecological status classes.
Its important to note that by this definition the ecological quality status can not be assessed solely by measuring the ecosystem components (e.g. nutrient concentrations, algae biomass, algae species present,...). However these measurements need to be compared to the reference status of these components for this particular ecosystem.

High Good Moderate Poor Bad