- 4.3. artificial and heavily modified water bodies

  In the common understanding (Section 2) it is concluded that artificial or heavily modified water bodies should be considered in the intercalibration, but not as a separate category.
Some artificial or heavily modified water bodies could be considered to be included in the intercalibration network, if they fit into one of the natural water body types selected for the intercalibration network.
Artificial and heavily modified water bodies that are not comparable with any natural water bodies should only be included in the intercalibration network if they are dominant within a water category in one or more Member States. In that case they should be treated as one or several separate water body types.
Final designation of heavily modified water bodies and definition of maximum ecological potential will be established in 2009.

Heavily modified water bodies, which are provisionally identified in 2003 (i.e. water bodies that are at risk of failing good status due to physical modification), can only be included in the intercalibration network, if they fulfil the same selection criteria as natural water bodies. This needs to be evaluated by the expert groups during the selection process (Section 4.1.)