This personal geodatabase (compatible Access 1997 and beyond, ArcGis® 9.3.0 and beyond) contains the “lakes” datasets of Ecrins v1.0 Lakes are very important features of any hydrographical system and have hence been added to Ecrins. This feature is more uncertain than the other ones since it results from the processing of different sources under a twin constraint of relevance and free of charges accessibility. The current layer comprises 70,847 lake objects, that will certainly be updated in the months to come. A lake is, as a river both a geometric and cultural object. In areas where many lakes are intertwined, the difference between one and several lakes is often that a name has been found or not or that the Corine Land cover maker has placed a limit or not. The database comprises the following tables: feature class C_Lak with all information related to all still waterbodies which area is more than the Corine Land cover threshold, plus those identified because a reservoir or any other relevant source. This table is completed by the centroids of lakes, V_lak_Centro. The complex relationships between lakes and river segments are documented by table lakInOut where the inlet and the outlet(s) segments are reported. Complementary tables, needed by the water accounts, v_lakperadmin et v_linterfec respectively document the lake to administrative entities, with shared area and same with FECs. Being in relation with the other components of Ecrins, lakes are versioned with respect to catchments and rivers and with their update as well. Lake naming comes from fours sources: ERM, Eldred2, Art 13 reporting and Wikipedia. Hydrographical information (volume, Zaverage, Zmax) and is permanently updated from three source: Eldred2, the dams database, and Wikipedia In version 1.0, the history of lakes is not documented. Most natural lakes have a time span much before and beyond the expected duration of Ecrins. Artificial lakes, related to dams have their history documented with the dam and some natural lakes are intermittent. This last category is not documented. Since lower limit for lake inclusion is 25 ha, all “main lakes” under the WFD acceptation are present (except if missed for any reason, the most likely being creation of an artificial reservoir not present in the latest update). Full documentation is in EEA technical report 9/2012, downloadable from the EEA website.

This personal geodatabase (compatible Access 1997 and beyond, ArcGis® 9.3.0 and beyond) contains the “river segments” datasets of Ecrins v1.0. River segments mimic the surface rivers on a simplified way, allowing simple journeying. As for FECs, but completed because of the process, any segment may have 0, 1 or 2 upstream and single downstream. The reason for single upstream is because spurious branching segments have been removed (~160,000) from CCM source during the Ecrins making. The segments mimic rivers that are cultural, not simply defined objects. The “dummy rivers” (ID is CGENELIN) branches together all the segments which spring is most distant to the sea, then second most distant and connecting to this first set of segments, etc. the “true rivers” are those sets of segments having the same name, disregarding translation (segments on the Rheine, Rhin, etc. have same river ID). Name of true rivers is hosted in the EcrGaz database. Dummy rivers maybe sorted out as “main drains” that either connect FECs together (continental FECs) or are the most important in a coastal FEC. Main drains are hence the potential population of “WFD large rivers”, since the FEC average size is ~1/10 of the threshold catchment size of main rivers. The geodatabases contains two feature classes: C_Tr where all segments lines are. This table links to FECs, since a FEC may contain several segments. Feature class C_node contains all nodes, making implicit the flow direction that is identified in C_tr by FNode (from node) and TNode (to node). Field River_ID links to flat table RivNames in EcrGaz personal geodatabase Full documentation is in EEA technical report 9/2012, downloadable from the EEA website.

Ecrins is acronym for European catchments and Rivers network system. It is a geographical information system of the European hydrographical systems with a full topological information. Ecrins is a composite system made from the CCM developed by the JRC, Corine land Cover, WFD reporting elements, etc. It is organised from a layer of 181,071 “functional elementary catchments (FECs)” which average size is ~62 km2, fully connected with explicit identifier (ID) relationships and upstream area. Catchments are grouped as sub-basins, river basin districts (actual and functional to meet hydrographical continuity). The catchments are as well organised according to their sea shore of emptying to meet Marine Strategy delineations. Catchments are drained by 1,348,163 river segments, sorted as “main drains” (connecting together the FECs) and secondary drains (internal to a FEC). river segments mimic the natural drainage, however fulfilling the topological constraint of “0,1 or 2 upstreams, single or 0 downstream”. Each segment is populated with distance to the sea, to ease further processing. They are connected to elementary catchments and nodes documented with altitude. Segments are as well documented with a “dummy river code”, fully populated that earmark each segment with the most distant to the outlet in each drainage basin and, everywhere this has been possible, with a “true river” ID based on river naming. A layer of lakes and dams has been elaborated. Lakes polygons (70,847) are taken from Corine Land cover , WFD Art. 13 and in some cases, from CCM “water layer”. Lakes inlets and outlets are set with the segment ID and where relevant, the dams making the lake is documented. All lakes which depths and volume was found have been updated. Version 1.0 here presented still contain some topological errors (e.g. incorrect segment branching), because inaccurate geometry. They are noted and a correction procedure is underway.

This personal geodatabases (compatible Access 1997 and beyond, ArcGis® 9.3.0 and beyond) contains different ancillary datasets of Ecrins v1.0. the number and contents of the ancillary. The most relevant feature class is the C_dams that documents the dams that have a position accurately recorded. Hence this layer is likely to be updated if new coordinates are obtained (coordinates and dams update is a continuous work by the EEA). Dams are related to river segments and to lakes. It may happen that a dam is not related for several reasons: dams coordinates are inaccurate; position of lake / segment is inaccurate and too far and I some cases the lake does not exist (e.g. less than 25 ha, not yet filled or the dams makes no lake) or the segment does not exist for example is the lake has no river to empty it. The second ancillary data set id the features class of FECs centroids, it has been placed here to avoid inflating the EcrFEC database and make it at a safe distance of the 2GB impassable threshold of MS Access® . The two last ancillary dataset are flat table making it possible to retrieve source CCM catchments that contributed to FECS, table FECvsW1, with reference to the smallest entity aggregated as FEC. second table is TR_TR0 giving equivalence of the segment ID in version 0 to the current version. Both tables are only for those experts working in parallel with CCM. Full documentation is in EEA technical report 9/2012, downloadable from the EEA website.

This data set, albeit a geodatabases, does not contain feature classes. For the time being, it only contains flat tables Rinames (river names) that links to C_TR feature class with ID Riv_ID (river identifier) and to RivNamesAlias, when more than one alternate name was found for the river. Ancillary table Tr2Riv makes another updated relationship between segments (as from C_Tr) and RivNames / RivNamesAlias in case of need to compute some statistics (e.g. named rivers per basin, etc.) When relevant, other gazetting could be added to this data set and will be documented in next releases. The graphic shows the rivers names (excluding those unnamed).

This personal geodatabases (compatible Access 1997 and beyond, ArcGis® 9.3.0 and beyond) contains the “functional elementary catchments” datasets of Ecrins v1.0 The FECs apportion into two big categories: the coastal FECs and the continental FECs. Coastal FECs have the following characteristics: they may have 0 to several outlets, they have no upstream FEC and they touch a terminal recipient (sea or endorheic lake). They ID starts by ‘W’. The continental FECs may have an outlet, but at least one upstream if the FEC is terminal. Continental FECs belong to three categories: upstream (no upstream FEC), intermediates (upstream(s) and one downstream or terminal (upstream(s) and no downstream. The database contains a single table of features, named C_Zhyd that contains the Ecrins version to which these FECs refer, the FEC ID and attribute values. Special mention to field Code_Arbo, specially designed to circulate upstream with flat algorithm instead of recursive algorithm. Full documentation is in EEA technical report 9/2012, downloadable from the EEA website.

This personal geodatabases (compatible Access 1997 and beyond, ArcGis® 9.3.0 and beyond) contains the aggregation catchments datasets of Ecrins v1.0 The purpose of Ecrins is modelling and homogeneous assessment of any data sets and information in relation with continental catchment systems. The WFD is the main driver of creation of such aggregates. The uppermost aggregate of the WFD is the “river basin district” that is not hydrological entity. It is analysed as i) all those FECS being in majority in the official RBD delineation, ii) all those FECs, topologically connected, that are the closet shaping of the RBD, the “functional RBD”. For example, the upper Garonne is in the first case attached the Ebro RBD and to the Garonne functional RBD because the water empties in the Gironde, not in the Mediterranean RBD sizes lay in a wide range. Two categories of sub-basins have been designed, the “sub-basins Strahler, aggregated from a Strahler order criterion and the natural sub-basins, aggregated from a main affluent criterion. Both apportion functional RBDs. The tables are C_B, the catchments that empty on a se-shore (as the seas from SeaVox, care taken of islands: e.g. England and France vs. British Channel are different C_B, despite same sea shore) RBD_Int_clp are the RBDs, dissolved as international RBDs; C_FRBD functional RBDs C_SS: sub-basins based on Strahler definition, C_SB: sub-basins natural C_NUTS: harmonised table of “pseudo nuts” used to document FECs (largest share of FEC in a NUT). NUT level has been selected to match best French NUTS2, making appropriate aggregate in those countries not using the NUTs classification; C_try: delineation of countries to which FECs have been set. The ID of each feature in each feature class are those in the C_Zhyd table of EcrFEC. Full documentation is in EEA technical report 9/2012, downloadable from the EEA website.

The natural sub basins of Europe is a feature dataset which subdivides natural basins bigger than 40,000 square Kilometres into sub catchments of a surface between 10,000 square Kilometres and 40,000 square Kilometres. Sub basins are defined using the catchment area of big tributaries as much as possible, and subdividing the main course of the river into upper, medium, and lower parts of the basin. The target is having a spatially homogeneous, but still with hydrological meaning units. These subdivisions are nested when river basins are big and tributaries drain a surface bigger than 40,000 square Kilometres, which in the case of Danube and Volga makes up to 3 levels of sub basins.

River Basin Districts (RBDs) and/or their subunits are the main units for the management of river basins and have been delineated by Member States under Article 3 of the Water Framework Directive. The geographic area of some RBDs span more than one country (such as the Danube) and these are known as International RBDs. Others are contained completely within a country and are known as National RBDs. River basin districts are defined as the area of land and sea, made up of one or more neighbouring river basins together with their associated groundwaters and coastal waters, which is identified under Article 3(1) as the main unit for management of river basins. Coastal waters are defined as one nautical mile from the coastline and extending, where appropriate, up to the outer limit of transitional waters. Coastal waters are included in RBDs, but this is not consistenly reported by Member States. Transitional waters are defined as bodies of surface water in the vicinity of river mouths which are partly saline in character as a result of their proximity to coastal waters but which are substantially influenced by freshwater flows. For more information about European waters, please visit the WISE portal (http://water.europa.eu/).

The shape file GWB_horizon_h4 comprises all GWBs located in the groundwater body horizon 4, which are usually underlying the groundwater bodies assigned to horizon 3. The dbf tables of the shape files include the columns “EU_CD_GW” as the GWB identifier and “Horizon” describing the vertical positioning. The polygon identifier “Polygon_ID” was added subsequently, because some GWBs consist of several polygons with identical “EU_CD_GW”even in the same horizon. Some further GWB characteristics are provided with the Microsoft Excel file “GWB_attributes_2012June.xls” including the column “EU_CD_GW”, which serves as a key for joining spatial and attribute data. There is no corresponding spatial data for GWBs in the Microsoft Excel table without an entry in column “EU_CD_GW”. The spatial resolution is given for about a half of the GWBs in the column “Scale” of the xls file, which is varying between the MS from 1:10,000 to 1:1,000,000 and mostly in the range from 1:50,000 to 1:250,000.