Water Framework Directive Operational Catchments for Surface Water Management

Water Framework Directive (WFD) Operational Catchments Cycle 2 is a dataset grouping WFD waterbodies at a scale smaller than management catchments. The data is provided by the Government Digital Service under an OGL-UK-3.0 license. It is based on surface water boundaries and excludes underlying groundwater data.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial grouping of waterbodies based on shared pressures and measures.
• Model surface water management units for environmental policy implementation.
• Map operational catchment boundaries for hydrological and administrative planning.

Strengths

• Data is provided by a government organization (Government Digital Service).
• Dataset has a defined legal and policy context (Water Framework Directive).
• Released under a permissive open license (OGL-UK-3.0).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Grouping of Water Framework Directive waterbodies based on pressures and measures.

Time Range

Cycle 2 (specific dates unknown)

Freshness

unknown

Geography

Likely covers areas under the Water Framework Directive, such as the UK or EU.