A hitchhiker's guide to European lake ecological assessment and intercalibration

The WaterFrameworkDirectiveisthefirstinternationallegislationtorequireEuropeancountriesto establish comparableecologicalassessmentschemesfortheirfreshwaters.Akeyelementinharmonising quality classificationwithinandbetweenEurope’sriverbasinsisan“Intercalibration”exercise,stipulated by theWFD,toensurethatthegoodstatusboundariesinallofthebiologicalassessmentmethodscorre- spond tosimilarlevelsofanthropogenicpressure.Inthisarticle,weprovideacomprehensiveoverview of thisinternationalcomparison,focusingontheassessmentschemesdevelopedforfreshwaterlakes. Out of82lakeecologicalassessmentmethodsreportedforthecomparison,62weresuccessfullyinter- calibrated andincludedintheECDecisiononintercalibration,withahighproportionofphytoplankton (18), macrophyte(17)andbenthicfauna(13)assessmentmethods.Allthelakeassessmentmethodsare reviewed inthisarticle,includingtheresultsofintercalibration.Furthermore,thecurrentgapsandway forward toreachconsistentmanagementobjectivesforEuropeanlakesarediscussed. © 2015TheAuthors.PublishedbyElsevierLtd.ThisisanopenaccessarticleundertheCCBY-NC-NDBenthic invertebrates Ecological assessment Europe Fish fauna Lakes Macrophytes Phytoplankton Water FrameworkDirective