Abstract

The Netherlands currently lacks a guaranteed toolbox for the transfer of information on the state its groundwater resources to the European Commission. There is an urgent need to streamline both the flow and the storage of available data, and to integrate these two data management procesesses.
The Water Framework Directive requires European member states to submit regular reports on the qualitative and quantitative state of the groundwater and surface water found within their national boundaries. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) of the Netherlands, by order of the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM), has worked out how best to integrate the available groundwater data from the various databases in order to satisfy this requirement.
The Netherlands has established good environmental monitoring networks which are managed at different governmental levels, such as by provincial or municipal administrations. For the entire monitoring system to function well, it is important that an integrated approach be adopted in terms of data monitoring, storage and reporting. The RIVM has investigated which data and information flows are currently in use in the system and assessed to what degree these need to be streamlined.
A significant part of the groundwater data is stored into the DINO database, which is managed by the Institute for Applied Sciences (TNO). This database is updated regularly with data provided by most of the provinces and municipalities. Contact will be maintained with the other provincies and municipalities so that all of their groundwater data will be stored in DINO. The archiving, quality assurance and flow of data within the DINO database are guaranteed in conformity with ISO 9002. It is also important that a workflow and procedures be developed for translating data from the DINO-database into the (Dutch) WFD-portal, in which the monitoring results are shown as a map.