Water Framework Directive Lake Waterbodies: Attributes and Classification for Cycle 2

European lake waterbodies defined under the Water Framework Directive, represented as polygon shapefiles. The dataset contains attributes on physical characteristics, risk, classification, and proposed objectives, linked to waterbodies via unique identifiers. It was collated by the Government Digital Service for WFD implementation and was updated to a 2018 version.

Use Cases

• Assessing ecological status and risk for lakes based on the classification attributes mentioned in the description.
• Mapping and analyzing the spatial distribution of lake waterbodies using the polygon shapefile data.
• Tracking progress towards environmental objectives for water bodies using the proposed objectives data.
• Studying the coverage of protected areas by analyzing the inclusion criteria for smaller lakes.

Strengths

• Includes artificial and modified lake waterbodies, providing a broad scope of assessment.
• Contains a unique identifier (EA_WB_ID) for linking to detailed WFD attributes.
• Data applies to a specific regulatory cycle (Cycle 2) of the Water Framework Directive.

Limitations

• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified beyond the 2018 version note.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Collated as defined for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive.

Time Range

Cycle 2 of the Water Framework Directive.

Freshness

Updated to a 2018 version, but last update date is unknown.

Geography

European lake waterbodies, likely within the EU.