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CHAPTER 1 5.8.2 5.8.2 Technical overview of intercalibration
A short overview is provided with access to some of
the key documents.
The intercalibration process described in WFD (Annex V, 1.4.1) and CIS Guidance N° 6 Towards a Guidance
on Establishment of the Intercalibration Network and the Process on the Intercalibration Exercise, based
(21)
on a network of sites defining high/good and good/moderate status, was impracticable.
Shortly after intercalibration began, it was realised that alternative methods based on a larger amount of
monitoring data were needed. These are described in CIS Guidance N° 14 Guidance on the Intercalibration
Process (2004–2006), (22) (Figure 1.21). It was not possible to intercalibrate every quality element in every
water body category at once. Biological assessment methods were insufficiently developed for many
quality elements. Because of this, there have been three phases of intercalibration so far, and work on this
continues. Intercalibration also forced changes to be made to the concept of typology (Section 4.4), plus
refinements to the definitions of the ‘reference state’ (Section 5.7).
Many Member States used intercalibration to help them develop their own national biological assessment
procedures, together with the data provided by monitoring. As a result, many countries have modified
their biological assessment methods following the first river basin management cycle. Intercalibrating
new or revised methods to an existing intercalibration is much simpler, and procedures for doing this are
explained in CIS Guidance N° 30 Procedure to fit new or updated classification methods to the results of a
completed intercalibration exercise (23) http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/
facts_figures/guidance_docs_en.htm
Figure 1.21
Common Implementation Strategy Guidance Documents for intercalibration. CIS Guidance No 14 was produced, detailing
previous intercalibration phases and only the version for Phase 1 (2004–2006) is currently available from the Europa website
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/facts_figures/guidance_docs_en.htm
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