EU Surface Water Protected Area Linkage Records — EEA WISE

Keyless. Pay per record. Every link between a European surface water body and the protected areas tied to it.

This actor turns the European Environment Agency (EEA) WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) database into clean, per-record data — the association between Europe's surface water bodies (rivers, lakes, coastal and transitional waters) and the PROTECTED AREAS tied to them: drinking-water protection areas, Natura 2000 sites, bathing waters, nitrate vulnerable zones, and other designations. Each run reads the EEA's keyless DiscoData SQL service and delivers one row per surface-water-to-protected-area link, 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, each surface water body is assessed and linked to the protected areas that rely on it. This actor reads that association table and delivers one record per link: the country, river basin district and sub-unit, the surface water body (code, name, category), the protected-area code and TYPE, whether protected-area objectives were set and met, and the body's ecological and chemical status labels — all carried as filed. It is the surface-water protected-area linkage layer of Europe's water assessment, the surface-water counterpart to the groundwater protected-area cell.

Who buys this and for what job

• Drinking-water utilities and regulators mapping which surface waters underpin which protection areas.
• Bathing-water and Natura 2000 analysts linking surface-water status to the protected areas that depend on it.
• Agri-environment and catchment products tying nitrate vulnerable zones to their surface waters.
• Data engineers who want the WISE WFD surface-water protected-area association 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 associations and status labels as filed — not a compliance verdict.

Water-body grain — no person data

The unit of every record is a link between a surface water body and a protected area — 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 protected-area code and type, the objectives-set/met flags, and the status labels. 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 422,739 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). The planning index for this category was 413,457; the live count above is slightly higher and is the authoritative figure. This is the real, populated table for this category.

Pricing

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold / Platinum / Diamond
surface_water_protected_area_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 protected-area link. Representative example (values as reported):

{
  "record_id": "DERW0001:DEPA0001:2022",
  "reporting_year": 2022,
  "country_code": "DE",
  "country_name": "Germany",
  "eu_rbd_code": "DE1000",
  "rbd_name": "RHINE",
  "eu_sub_unit_code": "DE1001",
  "eu_surface_water_body_code": "DERW0001",
  "surface_water_body_name": "Example River WB",
  "surface_water_body_category": "River",
  "eu_protected_area_code": "DEPA0001",
  "protected_area_type": "Bathing water",
  "protected_area_objectives_set": "Yes",
  "protected_area_objectives_met": "No",
  "sw_ecological_status_value": "3",
  "sw_chemical_status_value": "2",
  "source": "EEA WISE Water Framework Directive (WFD) — surface water body to protected-area linkage",
  "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 surface-water-body-to-protected-area link. 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. Protected area: eu_protected_area_code, protected_area_type, protected_area_objectives_set, and protected_area_objectives_met. Body 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 surface-water protected-area association table (filtered to your optional countryCode and year), ordered by the high-cardinality surface-water-body code, 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 422,739 rows across reporting countries, river basin districts, water-body categories, protected-area types, and the 2016 and 2022 WFD reporting cycles. Because each record carries the country_code, the water-body identity, the protected_area_type, and the reporting_year, segmenting by country, basin, category, protected-area type, or cycle is straightforward. Pull one country, one protected-area type, or the whole table to seed a water-status warehouse.

Working with the data

The linkage is a dependency map, and the fields make it actionable. Because every record pairs a surface water body with a protected_area_type and the body's ecological and chemical status, an analyst can find, in one group-by, which bathing waters or drinking-water protection areas sit on surface waters that are not in good status — and can track whether protected-area objectives were set and met between the 2016 and 2022 cycles.

Cost guidance

One surface_water_protected_area_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, objectives flags, and associations are as filed by member states for the WFD reporting cycle; this actor reformats, it does not audit or recompute.
• A linkage, not a verdict. These are reported associations and status labels, not an independent compliance assessment.
• Two cycles merged. The reporting_year field distinguishes the 2016 and 2022 cycles — filter on it if you want a single cycle.
• Placeholder codes kept verbatim. Where a member state filed a placeholder for a protected-area code, it is carried through as reported.
• 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 SURFACE-WATER counterpart to eu-groundwater-protected-area-linkage-records, and is distinct from the surface-water exemption and status cells. Its specific job is the WFD surface-water-body to protected-area linkage.

The NexGen Signal family

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

• EU Groundwater Protected Area Linkage Records — EEA
• EU Surface Water Priority Substance Records — EEA
• EU Waterbody Quality Records — EEA
• EU Bathing Water 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. Status labels and associations as filed for the WFD reporting cycle, not a compliance verdict.