全球智库信息集成服务系统

Ecologic is part of the European Environment Agency's European Topic Center (ETC) on Water. The ETC is supporting the Agency in all water related issues such as databases, indicators and policy recommendations for the period 2007 to 2010. Within the team of 11 partners, Ecologic is responsible for climate, assessments, economics and WISE-related tasks.

European Topic Centres (ETC) are important instruments of European Environment Agency (EEA) in monitoring the environment in the EEA member countries, creating an international database and analysing the current state and future changes of the environment. The ETC Water was created in 2004. In the first years of its inception, the establishment of a database on water resources in EEA member countries was the main task of the centre.

The Topic Centre works in five major areas:

1. monitoring water resources and collecting data on water quality and quantity, as well as biological and hydro-morphological elements and pressures information, covering all areas of groundwater, surface, transitional, coastal and marine waters according to needs at the European level;
2. developing indicators for the assessment of state and trends in the environment and to support policy processes in the water area;
3. contribution to the development and implementation of EU policies, in particular Water Framework Directive (WFD) and Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD);
4. contributing to the EEA assessment reports;
5. capacity building in EEA member countries.

The ETC Water is made up of 11 partners, which contribute to freshwater and marine water issues. Ecologic in particular is responsible for freshwater tasks and deals with economics, assessments and climate-related issues within the ETC. In that way, Ecologic contributes to the assessment of states and trends in the environment supporting policy processes in the water area, and to the various thematic EEA assessment reports.

Regarding WISE, Ecologic performed usability tests of the WISE website in order to investigate if users from the general public quickly comprehend what information is provided on the WISE website and if they are able to find specific information. Additionally, Ecologic developed targeted user group profiles in order to support EEA in its task to enhance the user friendliness of its water website.