New map service layers on the Surface Water Quality Portal of the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection (GIOŚ)

At the end of March 2025, new map service layers were launched on the Surface Water Quality Portal managed by the Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection (GIOŚ). This is a GIS-type service with thematic layers that can be toggled on and off. Currently, the default view presents a map of measurement and control points (ppk), which, when clicked, display a pop-up window with the results of physicochemical and chemical water quality measurements taken in 2025.

At the time of the map’s launch, the data entered into the IT system supporting the state environmental monitoring for surface waters (Ekoinfonet JWoda) primarily came from January, and these are the results currently shown. Each pop-up contains information on a single measurement, so to view more, the list icon in the window must be clicked.

Clicking this icon opens a list of all measurements from the given year. These can vary by location. For example, at the Kłodnica – inflow to the Dzierżno Duże reservoir ppk site near the Wodne Sprawy editorial office, 777 entries were collected in the 2024 measurement results layer for chemical and physicochemical parameters. The results are sorted in descending order according to the list of water quality parameters specified in the monitoring regulation, and within each parameter, from the newest to the oldest. In this example, the first result is a tetrachloroethylene (PER) measurement from December 9, 2024, and the last is a multimetric diatom index (IO) measured on March 18, 2024.

New GIOŚ map service layers and access to archived data

The results shown in the chemical and physicochemical measurement layers are automatically updated once entered into the JWoda system. This means they appear relatively quickly after the measurement is taken, but they have not undergone a verification process and there is no guarantee they will be included in the classification of ecological (physicochemical, biological, and hydromorphological elements) or chemical (chemical elements) status or potential, and ultimately in the overall water status assessment.

The most recent classification for surface water bodies (jcwp) covered the period 2016–2021, and its results are presented in separate thematic layers. The classification and quality assessment results for riverine, lake, coastal, and transitional jcwp are visualized separately. These data had already been available in the GIOŚ map service.

In addition, the service includes layers of measurement and control points and layers with data from the Polish Waters authority, such as surface water bodies for rivers, with distinctions for dam reservoirs, lakes, coastal, and transitional waters. Separate layers cover the planning cycles of 2016–2021 and 2022–2027. The ppk layer contains not only the names and codes of the points but also information about the types of monitoring planned for them.

Closing the window with the layer or base map selection is somewhat unintuitive. It is not done using the typical “X” in the corner of the window, but by clicking the “Layers” or “Base” button again. In the pop-up windows, in addition to basic information about the ppk or jcwp and monitoring results, there are links to other pages on the Surface Water Quality Portal. These lead to pages such as “Monitoring and assessment of surface water bodies for rivers” (and the corresponding pages for other water categories), where the monitoring system is described – from planning the ppk network to presenting the water quality classification results for jcwp.

Most importantly, these pages include links to tables with former and current state environmental monitoring programs for surface waters and the classification results for jcwp status in different periods. These tables provide not only information on the quality classes assigned to jcwp but also the results that determined these classes – annual average values for specific physicochemical or chemical indicators, and results of biological and hydromorphological indices.

Thanks to these, it is possible to track changes in water status classification over the years and compare the values of its indicators. These data form the basis for articles published in Wodne Sprawy, such as How bad is bad water status? On the devil in the details and Are our lakes clean or dirty? The state of Polish lakes based on monitoring data.

The newest part of the map service is linked to another page of the portal titled Archived and current data from surface water monitoring. This page contains links to various data sets. The first set leads to tables with the most up-to-date data entered into the JWoda system – the results of specific physicochemical and chemical measurements from all ppk sites. These are updated roughly once a month. Further links lead to historical data. The most complete and organized sets are from the years 2016–2023. Earlier data are more dispersed and come in very different formats. Nevertheless, they are used by researchers studying the dynamics of biodiversity and its relationship with the physicochemical conditions of water over the years.