WFD - Annex V - 1.3.1. Design of surveillance monitoring

Member States shall establish surveillance monitoring programmes to provide information for:

• supplementing and validating the impact assessment procedure detailed in Annex II,
• the efficient and effective design of future monitoring programmes,
• the assessment of long-term changes in natural conditions, and
• the assessment of long-term changes resulting from widespread anthropogenic activity.

Surveillance monitoring shall be carried out of sufficient surface water bodies to provide an assessment of the overall surface water status within each catchment or subcatchments within the river basin district. In selecting these bodies Member States shall ensure that, where appropriate, monitoring is carried out at points where:

• the rate of water flow is significant within the river basin district as a whole; including points on large
  rivers where the catchment area is greater than 2 500 km2,
• the volume of water present is significant within the river basin district, including large lakes and reservoirs,
• significant bodies of water cross a Member State boundary,
• sites are identified under the Information Exchange Decision 77/795/EEC, and at such other sites as are required to estimate the pollutant load which is transferred across Member State boundaries, and which is transferred into the marine environment.

(see Annex V 1.3.1. Design of surveillance monitoring - L327/53)