STAR is a European

According to the requirements of the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, all member states of the EU have to establish the typology of their surface waterbodies. The typology is aimed at defining the type-specific reference conditions against which the ecological state of waters can be assessed. The abiotic typology of Polish lakes of an area greater than 50 ha was established based on morphometric, hydrographic and physico-chemical data taken from the Polish national monitoring dataset. The current dataset comprises 749 out of a total of 1042 lakes with an area greater than 50 ha in Poland. Lake types were identified based on a combination of abiotic characteristics of lakes specified in Annex II of the Water Framework Directive such as ecoregions, size, altitude, mean depth, geology and an additional factor -Schindler's ratio. Altogether 13 abiotic lake types were established.

The concept of “reference conditions” describes the benchmark against which current conditions are compared when assessing the status of water bodies. In this paper we focus on the establishment of reference conditions for European lakes according to a phytoplankton biomass indicator—the concentration of chlorophyll-a. A mostly spatial approach (selection of existing lakes with no or minor human impact) was used to set the reference conditions for chlorophyll-a values, supplemented by historical data, paleolimnological investigations and modelling. The work resulted in definition of reference conditions and the boundary between “high” and “good” status for 15 main lake types and five ecoregions of Europe: Alpine, Atlantic, Central/Baltic, Mediterranean, and Northern. Additionally, empirical models were developed for estimating site-specific reference chlorophyll-a concentrations from a set of potential predictor variables. The results were recently formulated into the EU legislation, marking the first attempt in international water policy to move from chemical quality standards to ecological quality targets.

STAR is a European