Waterframework Directive and Eutrophication

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires Member States to classify their surface water bodies according to its ecological status. The ecological quality status of a water body can be classified as: high, good, moderate, poor or bad and Member States should aim to restore the ecological quality status of all surface waters should be restored 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 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. If no reference sites exist for a certain water body, they can be derived by predictions using historical and archeological data.