| Title: |
WISE - Water Information System for Europe
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| Resource Type: |
web links
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| Language(s): |
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Spanish
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| Producers or distributor |
European Commission DG Environment
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| Other producers or distributors: |
European Environment Agency, Eurostat, Joint Reserach Centre
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| Author / Producer Type: |
Agency, regulator or other governmental or inter-governmental body
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| Web link for product information: |
http://water.europa.eu
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EUGRIS Keyword(s): |
Contaminated land-->policy and regulatory
Groundwater protection-->Groundwater processes-->Groundwater processes overview
Groundwater protection-->Groundwater protection overview
Groundwater protection-->Monitoring-->Monitoring overview
Groundwater protection-->Planning-->Planning overview
Sediments
Water and sanitation-->Industrial water
Water and sanitation-->Pollution
Water and sanitation-->Wastewater
Water and sanitation-->Water and sanitation
Water and sanitation-->Water and sanitation Overview
Water and sanitation-->Water supply
Water resources and their management -->Costs, benefits and sustainability
Water resources and their management -->Monitoring and mitigation
Water resources and their management -->River basin management
Water resources and their management -->River basins
Water resources and their management -->Stresses, quality and ecological status
Water resources and their management -->Water resources and their management Overview
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| Short description: |
The Water Information System for Europe – or WISE – is 'Your Gateway to water'. It complies a number of data and information collected at EU level by various institutions or bodies which has either not been available or only been fragmented over many places. There four EU partners developing WISE
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| Long description: |
The part on policy provides access to information on water-related policies and legislation of the European Union (EU). On one hand, this concerns the key legislation that is currently place such as the Water Framework Directive, the Urban Wastewater Treatment and Nitrates Directives, the Bathing and Drinking Water Directives and others. On the other hand, this includes an overview of new water policy areas at Community level when they are under development and negotiation, e.g. on the Thematic Strategy for the Marine Environment, the Flood Risk Management Directive or the Water Scarcity and Droughts aspect. Moreover, other water policy activities such as the EU Water Initiative or information on water and climate change are presented.
On water legislation, the user will find details on the directive, the implementation and supporting activities and documents that assist the Member States in the achievement of the objectives. In particular, the process and results of the Common Implementation Strategy is documented there.
The Themes and Data section provides information on a variety of European water related issues, and includes an overview of:
Themes and data
European waters
Water pollution
Status and monitoring
Water resources
Water management
Data centre services
Reports and indicators
For many of the thematic areas, maps and data are available. These aids help visualise the particular issue on a European scale. For example, thematic maps summarise the data delivered by the Member States and provide links to national information providers at river basin level. Maps are updated when new quality assured data are received.
All data used for the European overview are accessible as part of the public interface of the WISE Geographic Information System. In the future, this system will also enable experts to access and download all the available data that Member States submit to the EU institutions. As a result, it will help streamline and reduce the reporting burden for Member States under the obligation of the Water Framework Directive and other water legislation, including also State of Environment information for the European Environment Agency or Eurostat.
This information is intended to provide a comprehensive single entry point for identifying and tackling current water related issues for the whole of Europe as well as measuring the development of water quality and quantity. This will help facilitate improved management under the Water Framework and other EU Directives.
The Themes and Data section is maintained and updated by the EEA .
Over the last decades, many research projects have been initiated at European, National and International level, that have produced tools, knowledge and guidances that are of relevance for the implementation of European water-related Directives. For instance the projects of the FP5 CatchMod cluster resulted into tools and guidances directly relevant for the WFD implementation. However, the results of research projects are difficult to access for persons working on the implementation of European Directives. The WISE-RTD web-portal aims to support implementers with information directly supporting the issues currently on their desk.
The WISE-RTD web-portal will guide you to selected information in WISE and on web-sites all over Europe (and beyond). Guided search serves user groups working on the implementation of Directives at different levels of abstraction. Free search in the selected information provides a limited amount of results with high relevance. The WISE-RTD web-portal directly forwards to the actual spot of the information on external web-sites as far as possible.
Though being in a stage of final prototype, the WISE-RTD web-portal already 'ports' to more than 60 research and application projects, over 100 tools and provides direct entry inside CIS-guidance documents and technical documents. It is intended to extend the database for with other relevant projects which are co-financed by the EU (e.g. LIFE projects).
The WISE-RTD web portal is initiated within the FP5 Concerted Action Harmoni-CA (2002-2007) under responsibility of DG-Research, in direct response to suggestions by DG-Environment. A major aim of Harmoni-CA is to bring research and technology products under the attention of the people working on the WFD- implementation. The development of the WISE-RTD web-portal as such was a natural task to be initiated within the project. The system will be strongly extended and disseminated within the SPI-Water project (2006-2008) which is a special support activity sponsored by DG-Research and strongly supported by DG-Environment.
WISE-RTD is hosted by the Harmoni-CA project. Neither the European Commission not the EEA take any responsibility for the content of the projects part of WISE.
To know more about the projects, please visit http://www.wise-rtd.info/wpis/wise.html
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Link to Organisation(s):
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EC European Commission
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Submitted By:
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Professor Paul Bardos WhoDoesWhat?
Last update: 28/10/2007
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