Water is not a commercial product like all others, but it is a heritage that must be protected and properly treated.The implementation of the European Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD or as referred to internationally) is a prerequisite for the sustainable management of the country’s water resources. Monitoring the quality of all its surface waters ensures a proper, equitable assessment, timely diagnosis, of water resource problems for clearly defined management measures.According to the WFD, for each type of water body in Europe the undisturbed structure and functioning of water biosocieties are described as type-characteristic or reference conditions. Depending on the deviation of each water body from these conditions, its ecological status is characterised as high, good, moderate, incomplete or poor. The WFD set the target for all bodies of water in the European Union to have a ‘good’ ecological status in 2015. In each Member State, the determination of bodies of water is the basis for the implementation of the WFD, as each water body sets sampling points that will allow the ecological quality to be assessed, monitoring over time (while taking management measures) and ultimately checking whether or not the objective of “good” status is achieved. The Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (ELKETHE) implemented the first phase of monitoring the ecological quality of the Greek river, coastal and transitional waters (2012-2015). The monitoring network provided for in this project has been developed on the basis of the monitoring phase A network and taking into account the changes resulting from it (type changes, frequency of monitoring and location of stations). In particular, the planned monitoring plan includes a total of 644 stations (490 river water stations of 82 coastal water stations and 32 Greek transitional water stations). The scientific team of the project (ELKETHE and associated bodies) applies indicators, based on the WFD qualitative data (for any data available) to categorise the ecological status of river, coastal and transitional waters.
