EU Ecological Status Grouping Provenance Records — EEA WISE

Keyless. Pay per record. How Europe grouped its surface waters to classify ecological status — the provenance behind each assessment.

This actor turns the European Environment Agency (EEA) WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) database into clean, per-record data — the GROUPING provenance behind surface-water ecological status: which monitored water bodies were used to classify another by grouping, at quality-element grain, with the status-change context. Each run reads the EEA's keyless DiscoData SQL service and delivers one row per grouped quality-element assessment, structured for environmental and water-management analysis, reusable with acknowledgement of the EEA, with no personal data of any kind.

What this is, in one paragraph

Under the Water Framework Directive, member states may classify the ecological status of an unmonitored water body by GROUPING it with monitored ones — and they report which grouping was used, for which quality element, with what status and what change since the last cycle. This actor reads that quality-element grouping table, filtered to the rows that actually carry a grouping code, and delivers one record per grouped assessment: the country, river basin district and sub-unit, the surface water body (code, name, category), the ecological status value, the QUALITY ELEMENT code and its status, the monitoring results and period, the status-CHANGE and comparability context, and the GROUPING code — all carried as filed. It is the ecological grouping-provenance layer of Europe's water assessment, the ecological sibling of the chemical-status grouping cell.

Who buys this and for what job

• Water-status analysts and auditors tracing how ecological classifications were extrapolated across grouped water bodies.
• Environmental researchers studying grouping practice and status-change comparability across cycles.
• Regulatory-intelligence teams who need the provenance behind a body's ecological status, not just the headline value.
• Data engineers who want the WISE WFD quality-element grouping table as clean rows from a keyless source.

EEA licence — reuse with acknowledgement

One licence rider travels on every record. EEA data may be reused, including commercially, provided the source is acknowledged: "Source: European Environment Agency (EEA)." Where third-party content is marked, it keeps its own terms. These are reported classifications and provenance labels as filed — not a compliance verdict.

Water-body grain — no person data

The unit of every record is a grouped quality-element assessment for a surface water body — a water body and its reported attributes, never a person. WISE WFD reporting is at water-body / quality-element level: there is no contact, operator, or responsible-person field in the source table, and none is selected or emitted — the query reads only the water-body identity, the quality element, the status and grouping codes, and the change context. The free-text "other pressure/impact" narrative fields are EXCLUDED at field selection. A person-key guard runs on every record as a backstop. The file_url, where present, points to the official EEA/Eionet reporting file (an organisation reporting system), never a person.

A note on scale, honestly

The source table holds 5,987,789 rows in total, but most carry no grouping code (the classification was not extrapolated by grouping). This actor filters to the rows that actually carry a grouping code — an exact COUNT(*) of 851,821 at build time, which matches the planning index for this category exactly. It carries both the 2016 and 2022 Water Framework Directive reporting cycles (the reporting_year field distinguishes them). The live count above is authoritative.

Pricing

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold / Platinum / Diamond
ecological_status_grouping_provenance_record	$0.05	$0.045	$0.04	$0.0335

Delivered before charged. Blocked runs and empty results cost nothing.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
countryCode	string	—	Optional 2-letter country code (e.g. DE, FR).
year	integer	—	Optional WFD reporting cycle year to filter (e.g. 2016, 2022).
maxRecords	integer	500	Ceiling on records delivered and billed.

Output

One JSON object per grouped quality-element assessment. Representative example (values as reported):

{
  "record_id": "DERW0001:QE1-1-1:DEGRP001:2022",
  "reporting_year": 2022,
  "country_code": "DE",
  "country_name": "Germany",
  "eu_rbd_code": "DE1000",
  "rbd_name": "RHINE",
  "eu_surface_water_body_code": "DERW0001",
  "surface_water_body_category": "River",
  "sw_ecological_status_value": "3",
  "qe_code": "QE1-1-1",
  "qe_status_value": "3",
  "qe_status_change": "0",
  "qe_status_comparability": "Consistent change",
  "qe_grouping": "DEGRP001",
  "source": "EEA WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) — ecological status grouping provenance (quality element)",
  "observed_at": "2026-08-27T00:00:00Z"
}

An unbilled RUN_RECEIPT records the robots check, the filters, rows seen and delivered, and whether charged equals delivered.

Field reference

Each record is one grouped quality-element assessment. Identity: record_id, country_code, country_name, eu_rbd_code, rbd_name, eu_sub_unit_code, sub_unit_name, eu_surface_water_body_code, surface_water_body_name, surface_water_body_category, and reporting_year. Ecological context: sw_ecological_status_value and sw_ecological_assessment_year. Quality element: qe_code, qe_status_value, qe_monitoring_results, qe_monitoring_period, qe_status_change, qe_status_comparability, and the qe_grouping code. Plus has_descriptive_data and file_url. Provenance travels on every record: source, source_url, licence, attribution, disclaimer, and observed_at.

How a run works

A run first re-reads the source host's robots posture from your runtime — the EEA DiscoData host — and stops at the door if that ever changes. It pages the WISE WFD quality-element grouping table (always filtered to rows that carry a grouping code, plus your optional countryCode and year), ordered by the high-cardinality surface-water-body code, and flattens each row to one record — carrying every label and value verbatim, never anything person-shaped and never the free-text narrative fields — delivered before it is charged, so a blocked or empty run costs you nothing. The actor stops at your maxRecords ceiling and records charge_equals_delivered in the receipt.

Coverage and scope

The filtered table holds 851,821 rows across reporting countries, river basin districts, quality elements, and the 2016 and 2022 WFD reporting cycles. Because each record carries the country_code, the water-body identity, the qe_code, the qe_grouping, and the reporting_year, segmenting by country, basin, quality element, grouping, or cycle is straightforward. Pull one country, one quality element, or the whole filtered table to seed a water-status warehouse.

Working with the data

The provenance is an audit layer, and the fields make it actionable. Because every record ties a water body's quality-element assessment to a qe_grouping code and a qe_status_change and comparability label, an analyst can reconstruct which water bodies share a grouping, judge how much of a country's ecological classification rests on grouping rather than direct monitoring, and flag status changes that are not comparable across cycles.

Cost guidance

One ecological_status_grouping_provenance_record per delivered row: cost = rows delivered × your plan's per-record price. Scope with countryCode and year to keep runs bounded. 1,000 rows is $50 (Free) / $33.50 (Gold).

Honest limitations

• As reported. Status, grouping, and change labels are as filed by member states for the WFD reporting cycle; this actor reformats, it does not audit or recompute.
• Provenance, not a verdict. These are reported grouping and comparability labels, not an independent assessment.
• Filtered to grouped rows. Assessments not extrapolated by grouping are excluded by design; the full quality-element table is far larger.
• Two cycles merged. The reporting_year field distinguishes the 2016 and 2022 cycles — filter on it if you want a single cycle.
• Acknowledge the EEA, and note there is no person data of any kind.

Differentiation

This is a net-new category for the NexGenData fleet. It is the ECOLOGICAL sibling of eu-chemical-status-grouping-provenance-records (which traces chemical-status grouping at water-body grain); this cell traces ECOLOGICAL status grouping at the finer QUALITY-ELEMENT grain, a distinct source table. Its specific job is the WFD ecological-status grouping provenance.

The NexGen Signal family

Part of the NexGen Signal family of pay-per-record data products:

• EU Chemical Status Grouping Provenance Records — EEA
• EU Surface Water Priority Substance Records — EEA
• EU Surface Water Significant Impact Records — EEA
• EU Waterbody Quality Records — EEA
• EU Nitrate Monitoring Records — EEA

Source: European Environment Agency (EEA), WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) database (discodata.eea.europa.eu). EEA data may be reused, including commercially, provided the source is acknowledged: "Source: European Environment Agency (EEA)"; marked third-party content keeps its own terms. Water-body grain; no contact, operator, or responsible-person field is selected or emitted, no natural-person data of any kind. Classifications and provenance labels as filed for the WFD reporting cycle, not a compliance verdict.