EEA/ETC WATER – EIONET ANNUAL WORKSHOP
Eionet – Water Developments: Effect of the Water Framework Directive and Integration of the SOER dataflows into WISE

Copenhagen, 12 October 2005
(Posted 28 February 2006)

Eionet (European Environment Information and Observation Network) workshops on the water topic have been held annually since 1996 and are an important opportunity to allow interaction between EEA-ETC Water (European Topic Centre on Water, Topic Centre of the European Environment Agency) staff and the national Eionet specialists. All EEA member and participating countries were invited, through the Eionet National Focal Point network, to nominate a national representative to attend the workshop. The workshop was held back-to-back with the meeting of the State of the Environment Reporting (SOER) Drafting Group on the 11 October. The mandate of the group (which falls under the Common Implementation Strategy of the WFD, Working Group D: Reporting) is to establish, develop and implement a streamlined flow of data and information on the state of and pressures on the environment integrated with compliance reporting activities of the WFD and other water directives. The members of the group are either Eionet National Reference Centres for reporting to the EEA or are closely connected with that process and 11 members (from 21) also attended the workshop.

The full report and conclusions and all Powerpoint presentations are available for
downloading from the EEA Eionet website:
(http://eea.eionet.eu.int/Public/irc/eionet-circle/water/library?l=/copenhagen_workshop&
vm=detailed&sb=Title.http://www.eionet.eu.int)

THE EU WFD – FUNDAMENTALS AND KEY CHALLENGES
A CIWEM West Midlands Conference
(Posted 28 February 2006)

The first part of the conference dealt with the implementation process and the development of classification schemes that can be used for setting environmental objectives. The second part dealt with the key challenges for England and Wales posed by the Directive, in particular hydromorphology, diffuse pollution, sustainability, cost and public participation.

The presentations and delegates pack are now available for download on the CMS website:
(http://www.coastms.co.uk/cgi-bin/ftpex/FTPex_conferences.cgi?browse&Outputs%
20and%20Reports/WFD%20Briefing%20CIWEM%20West%20Midlands%20Branch)

40TH FLOOD AND COASTAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE,
July 2005

Abstracts of the presentations from the conference are available on the Defra website:
(http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/conference/abs40.htm)