The "Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2000/60/EC establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy", the so-called EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), defines in Article 4 "Environmental objectives" for surface water, groundwater and protected areas.
In order to achieve the "Environmental Objectives" for groundwater (Article 4(1)(b)), the WFD requires that specific measures shall be adopted to prevent and control pollution of groundwater. Such measures shall be aimed at achieving the objective of good groundwater chemical status. The criteria for achieving good groundwater chemical status are defined in Annex V 2.3.2 and in particular require that concentrations of pollutants (in groundwater) do not exceed any quality standards applicable under other relevant Community legislation. Further there is a requirement to identify and reverse any significant and sustained upward trends in the concentration of pollutants. The Directive provides specifications on the identification of trends in pollutant concentrations originating from diffuse and/or point sources.
This project focused on the development of particular algorithms for the identification of trends in pollutants (Annex V 2.4.4) and a data aggregation method for interpretation and presentation of groundwater chemical status as defined in Annex V 2.4.5.