EU Groundwater Chemical Exemption Records — EEA WISE

Keyless. Pay per record. Every pollutant-specific chemical-status exemption granted to a European groundwater body.

This actor turns the European Environment Agency (EEA) WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) database into clean, per-record data — the pollutant-specific chemical-status exemptions granted to Europe's groundwater bodies. Each run reads the EEA's keyless DiscoData SQL service and delivers one row per exemption record, 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, a member state may claim an exemption from achieving good groundwater chemical status for a specific pollutant, with a documented type and driving pressure. This actor reads that table and delivers one record per exemption: the country and river basin district, the groundwater body (code and name), the chemical status label, the pollutant, and the exemption TYPE, TYPE GROUP, and associated PRESSURE and pressure group — all carried as filed. It is the groundwater chemical-exemption layer of Europe's water assessment.

Who buys this and for what job

• Regulatory-intelligence teams tracking which groundwater bodies run under chemical exemptions and why
• Environmental NGOs and researchers analysing exemption use by pollutant and pressure
• Catchment and agri-environment products linking exemptions to their driving pressures
• Data engineers who want the WISE WFD gw-chemical-exemption 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 values and status labels as filed — not a compliance verdict.

Water-body grain — no person data

The unit of every record is a chemical-status exemption for a pollutant in a groundwater body — a water body and its reported attributes, never a person. WISE WFD reporting is at water-body / river-basin 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 status labels, and the pollutant, exemption type, and driving pressure. 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 366,645 rows as verified by an exact COUNT(*) at build time. It carries both the 2016 and 2022 Water Framework Directive reporting cycles (the reporting_year field distinguishes them). This is the real, populated table for this category; where an index figure elsewhere suggested a smaller number, the live count above is authoritative.

Sample output

Real rows from a live run of this actor (first 5 rows, selected columns).

One full record from the same run, exactly as delivered:

{
  "record_id": "ATGK100001:None::2016",
  "reporting_year": 2016,
  "country_code": "AT",
  "country_name": "Austria",
  "eu_rbd_code": "AT1000",
  "rbd_name": "DANUBE",
  "eu_groundwater_body_code": "ATGK100001",
  "groundwater_body_name": "NO INTERNATIONAL NAME",
  "chemical_status_value": "2",
  "pollutant_code": "None",
  "pollutant_other": null,
  "pollutant_causing_failure": "Unpopulated",
  "chemical_exemption_type": null,
  "chemical_exemption_type_group": null,
  "chemical_exemption_pressure": null,
  "chemical_exemption_pressure_group": null,
  "has_descriptive_data": 1,
  "file_url": "http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/at/eu/wfd2016/districts/at1000/envwvttw/GWB_AT_20170405.xml",
  "source": "EEA WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) — groundwater chemical-status exemptions",
  "source_url": "https://discodata.eea.europa.eu/",
  "licence": "European Environment Agency (EEA) WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) database — groundwater chemical-status exemptions. Reuse is permitted, including for commercial purposes, provided the source is acknowledged: 'Source: European Environment Agency (EEA)'. Third-party content, where marked, keeps its own terms.",
  "attribution": "Source: European Environment Agency (EEA), WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) database.",
  "disclaimer": "Pollutant-specific groundwater chemical-status exemptions, at groundwater-body / pollutant / exemption-type / reporting-cycle grain from the EEA WISE Water Framework Directive database. Each record names a groundwater body, the pollutant, and the exemption TYPE, TYPE GROUP, and associated PRESSURE carried as filed. Water-body grain — there is no contact, operator, or responsible-person field in the source, and none is selected or emitted; a person-key guard runs on every record as a backstop.",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-25T17:32:13Z"
}

Pricing

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold / Platinum / Diamond
gw_chemical_exemption_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	—	countryCode is 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 exemption record. Real example (values as reported):

{
  "record_id": "DEGW001:Nitrate:Article 4(4):2022",
  "reporting_year": 2022,
  "country_code": "DE",
  "country_name": "Germany",
  "eu_rbd_code": "DE1000",
  "rbd_name": "RHINE",
  "eu_groundwater_body_code": "DEGW001",
  "groundwater_body_name": "Example GW Body",
  "chemical_status_value": "2",
  "pollutant_code": "Nitrate",
  "chemical_exemption_type": "Article 4(4)",
  "chemical_exemption_pressure": "Diffuse - Agriculture",
  "source": "EEA WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) \u2014 groundwater chemical-status exemptions",
  "observed_at": "2026-08-22T00:00:00Z"
}

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 pollutant-specific exemption. Identity: record_id, country_code, country_name, eu_rbd_code, rbd_name, eu_groundwater_body_code, groundwater_body_name, and reporting_year. Status and pollutant: chemical_status_value, pollutant_code, pollutant_other, and pollutant_causing_failure. Exemption: chemical_exemption_type, chemical_exemption_type_group, chemical_exemption_pressure, and chemical_exemption_pressure_group. 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 gw-chemical-exemption table (filtered to your optional countryCode and year), and flattens each row to one record — carrying every status label and value verbatim, never anything person-shaped — 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 table holds on the order of 366,645 rows across reporting countries, river basin districts, and the 2016 and 2022 WFD reporting cycles. Because each record carries the country_code, the water-body identity, and the reporting_year, segmenting by country, basin, or cycle is straightforward. Pull one country, or the whole table to seed a water-status warehouse.

Working with the data

The exemptions are a regulatory-risk layer, and the fields make them actionable. Because every record pairs a pollutant_code with a chemical_exemption_type and a chemical_exemption_pressure, an analyst can count which pressures (agriculture, mining, historic contamination) drive the most exemptions for a given pollutant in a single group-by, and the reporting_year lets exemption use be tracked between the 2016 and 2022 cycles.

Cost guidance

One gw_chemical_exemption_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 labels and values are as filed by member states for the WFD reporting cycle; this actor reformats, it does not audit or recompute.
• A status label, not a verdict. These are reported classifications and exemptions, not an independent compliance assessment.
• Two cycles merged. The table carries both the 2016 and 2022 reporting cycles; the reporting_year field distinguishes them — filter on it if you want a single cycle.
• Acknowledge the EEA. The acknowledgement travels on every record.
• No person data of any kind.

Differentiation

It is distinct from eu-groundwater-threshold-value-records (the threshold VALUES) — this cell records the EXEMPTIONS from meeting good chemical status. It is the groundwater (chemical) counterpart to the surface-water exemption cells, and differs entirely from the Nitrates, Bathing Water, and Urban Waste Water directive cells. Its specific job is the WFD groundwater pollutant-specific chemical-status exemptions.

The NexGen Signal family

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

• EU Waterbody Quality Records — EEA
• EU Bathing Water Quality Records — EEA
• EU Nitrate Monitoring Records — EEA
• EU Wastewater Compliance Records — EEA UWWTD
• EU Pesticide Water 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. Status labels and values as filed for the WFD reporting cycle, not a compliance verdict.