WEC (RWES) in a European context : EUNIS & the Water Framework Directive

European directives have a significant impact on policies developed in the indivdual countries within the European Umion. The Water Framework Directive requests all participating countries to classify and monitor the surface waters within countries according to guidelines which are applicable for the whole of the European Union. Even though directives provide a pan-European legislative framework, they generally do not explicitly state how this framework should be implemented into national policies. Two classification methods are compared within the scope of their usability within Europe: 1. EUNIS (European Nature Information System) is one of the new habitat classification systems to be used within Europe. 2. The Water Ecotope Classification system (WEC, rijkswateren ecotopen stelsel) is designed for water systems in the Netherlands managed by the national authorities (Rijkswaterstaat) The objectives of this report are twofold: . firstly, to indicate the usefulness of the WEC in relation to the objectives and requirements stated in the Water Framework Directive . secondly, to compare the differences between the WEC and EUNIS classification and to try to indicate in which way the two methods can benefit from each other (e.g. by implementing specific features)