Challenges to water quality assessment in Europe – Is there scope for improvement of the current Water Framework Directive bioassessment scheme in rivers?

Abstract The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) assessment scheme has been putting in force the evaluation of freshwater ecosystems in Europe, including a new paradigm of ecological status. After almost 20 years since the WFD implementation, it is imperative to evaluate the efficiency of its standard assessment scheme and to explore the possibility of learning how to improve its effectiveness. That is the spirit of this review, aiming (i) to explore the existing literature on the WFD bioassessment scheme for assessing freshwater ecosystem health, particularly in lotic ecosystems (where the WFD scheme is most consolidated); (ii) to document which paths are suggested by the scientific community to improve the efficiency of the bioassessment in tackling current challenges. In the specific arena of bioassessment, we first identify the major constraints to the WFD full implementation in rivers. Second, we analyse retrospective Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) as an evaluation approach supporting management actions that could inspire improvements in the WFD bioassessment scheme. Third, we review the advances and debate on complementary metrics to improve WFD evaluation protocols and/or the feasibility of the evaluation outcome. Fourth, a conceptual scheme for an improved evaluation strategy is presented. Our proposal essentially merges the WFD bioassessment scheme with the ERA philosophy, proposing a tiered approach of increasing complexity and spatial resolution, where expert judgement is included surgically at all decision stages. This scheme requires true integration of chemical, ecological and ecotoxicological LoE for a quantitative estimation of risks, and provides a comprehensive framework that accommodates tools and perspectives already suggested by other authors. Besides providing a literature review on the strengths and weaknesses of the current WFD bioassessment scheme, we wish to open way for the scientific discussion towards an improved conceptual scheme for the evaluation of ecosystem health.