Review on water quality assessment in the Danube river basin
Abstract
The main goal of The Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC is to define the state of all bodies of water in the terms of an ecological category according to the 5 classes of quality. Due to the fact that the Danube is the second longest river in Europe, the evaluation of its water quality has always been a very debated topic in domain specific studies. The water ecological status may be established by calculating various quality indices which embrace both physico-chemical parameters and biological ones. The aim of this paper is to synthesize the previous research studies on the assessment and monitoring of water quality in the Danube River basin. According to these studies, the quality of the Danube water was included in various classes throughout the entire stream. This was due to both the anthropogenic and natural influences on the Danube water quality.