EU Modified Waterbody Alteration Records — EEA WISE

Keyless. Pay per record. The physical alterations behind Europe's heavily modified water bodies.

This actor turns the European Environment Agency (EEA) WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) database into clean, per-record data — the physical alterations that member states cite to designate a surface water as HEAVILY MODIFIED. Each run reads the EEA's keyless DiscoData SQL service and delivers one row per alteration, structured for water-management and infrastructure analysis, reusable with acknowledgement of the EEA, with no personal data of any kind.

What this is, in one paragraph

When a river, lake or coastal water has been so physically changed by human use that it cannot reach good ecological status, a member state may designate it "heavily modified" — and must record the physical alterations that justify that call. This actor reads that alteration table and delivers one record per entry: the country, river basin district and sub-unit, the surface water body (code, name, category), the natural/artificial/heavily-modified designation, the PHYSICAL ALTERATION type, and the body's ecological and chemical status — all carried as filed. It is the alteration-evidence layer behind Europe's heavily-modified designations.

Who buys this and for what job

• Hydropower, navigation and flood-defence analysts mapping which alterations drive modified-water designations.
• River-restoration teams targeting the physical changes most often cited across a basin.
• Water-policy researchers studying how designation practice varies by country.
• Data engineers who want the WISE WFD heavily-modified alteration 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 as filed — not a compliance verdict.

Water-body grain — no person data

The unit of every record is a physical alteration for a surface water body — a water body and a coded alteration, never a person. WISE WFD reporting is at water-body level: there is no contact, operator, or responsible-person field in the source table, and none is selected or emitted. The free-text "other pressure / other impact" narrative fields are EXCLUDED at field selection. A person-key guard runs on every record as a backstop.

A note on scale, honestly

The source table holds 56,281 rows; this actor delivers the rows that carry an actual physical alteration — an exact COUNT(*) of 53,869 at build time, which matches the planning index for this category exactly. It carries both the 2016 and 2022 WFD reporting cycles (the reporting_year field distinguishes them). 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": "ATOK100020003:Weirs / dam / reservoir:2016",
  "reporting_year": 2016,
  "country_code": "AT",
  "country_name": "Austria",
  "eu_rbd_code": "AT2000",
  "rbd_name": "RHINE",
  "eu_sub_unit_code": "AT2100",
  "sub_unit_name": "RHINE",
  "eu_surface_water_body_code": "ATOK100020003",
  "surface_water_body_name": "NO INTERNATIONAL NAME",
  "surface_water_body_category": "RW",
  "natural_awb_hmwb": "Heavily modified water body",
  "physical_alteration": "Weirs / dam / reservoir",
  "sw_ecological_status_value": "3",
  "sw_chemical_status_value": "3",
  "surface_water_body_transboundary": "No",
  "has_descriptive_data": 1,
  "file_url": "http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/at/eu/wfd2016/districts/at2000/envwvtbw/SWB_AT_20170509.xml",
  "source": "EEA WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) — heavily modified water body physical alterations",
  "source_url": "https://discodata.eea.europa.eu/",
  "licence": "European Environment Agency (EEA) WISE database under EU environmental reporting. 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 (discodata.eea.europa.eu).",
  "disclaimer": "Physical alterations supporting the designation of European surface waters as HEAVILY MODIFIED, at water-body / alteration grain from the EEA WISE WFD database (rows filtered to those carrying a recorded alteration). Each record carries the country, river basin district and sub-unit, the surface water body (code, name, category), the natural/AWB/HMWB designation, the PHYSICAL ALTERATION type, and the body's ecological and chemical status labels VERBATIM. The free-text 'other pressure/impact' narrative fields are EXCLUDED at field selection. Water-body grain — no contact, operator, or responsible-person field is selected or emitted, and a person-key guard runs on every record.",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-25T17:33:08Z"
}

Pricing

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold / Platinum / Diamond
modified_waterbody_alteration_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 (e.g. 2016, 2022).
maxRecords	integer	500	Ceiling on records delivered and billed.

Output

One JSON object per alteration. Representative example (values as reported):

{
  "record_id": "DERW0001:Dams, barrages and locks:2022",
  "reporting_year": 2022,
  "country_code": "DE",
  "eu_rbd_code": "DE1000",
  "rbd_name": "RHINE",
  "eu_surface_water_body_code": "DERW0001",
  "surface_water_body_category": "River",
  "natural_awb_hmwb": "Heavily modified water body",
  "physical_alteration": "Dams, barrages and locks",
  "sw_ecological_status_value": "3",
  "sw_chemical_status_value": "2",
  "source": "EEA WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) — heavily modified water body physical alterations",
  "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 physical alteration. 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. Designation and alteration: natural_awb_hmwb and physical_alteration. Status: sw_ecological_status_value, sw_chemical_status_value, and surface_water_body_transboundary. 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 heavily-modified alteration table (always keeping only rows with a real alteration, plus your optional countryCode and year), ordered by the high-cardinality water-body code, and flattens each row to one record — carrying every coded label verbatim, never anything person-shaped and never the free-text narrative — 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 53,869 rows across reporting countries, river basin districts, alteration types, and the 2016 and 2022 cycles. Because each record carries the country_code, the water-body code, the physical_alteration, and the reporting_year, segmenting by country, basin, alteration or cycle is straightforward. Pull one country, one alteration type, or the whole table to seed a water-status warehouse.

Working with the data

The alterations are an infrastructure-pressure layer, and the fields make them actionable. Because every record pairs a water body with a physical_alteration and its ecological status, an analyst can rank the alterations most associated with sub-good status in one group-by, and — joined to the companion eu-modified-waterbody-use-records on the water-body code — pair each physical alteration with the water USE it serves.

Cost guidance

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

Honest limitations

• As reported. Alteration types and status are as filed by member states; this actor reformats, it does not audit or recompute.
• Filtered to recorded alterations. Water bodies with no recorded alteration are excluded by design; the full table is larger.
• Two cycles merged. The reporting_year field distinguishes the 2016 and 2022 cycles.
• Acknowledge the EEA, and note there is no person data of any kind.

Differentiation

It is the ALTERATION half of the heavily-modified-designation evidence — a distinct source table from its paired sibling eu-modified-waterbody-use-records (the water USES), proven independently by count, and different from the surface-water status, pressure and impact cells. Its specific job is the WFD heavily-modified physical alterations.

The NexGen Signal family

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

• EU Surface Water Priority Substance Records — EEA
• EU Pressure Substance Failure Records — EEA
• EU River Basin Measure Inventory 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. Reported classifications as filed for the WFD reporting cycle, not a compliance verdict.