Overview:

6.3.2 Proportion of bodies of water with good ambient water quality (Tier II).

SDG indicator 6.3.2 provides information on the quality of freshwaters and how they change over time. The core components of the methodology reflect pressures that are relevant regardless of geography or a country’s socio-economic development status. The methodology goes further and provides flexibility to allow nationally relevant water quality issues to be reported where a country has the capacity to do so.
The methodology allows countries to monitor and report according to:

  1. Their respective capacities,
  2. Step-wise improvements in monitoring,
  3. Indicator reporting coverage as capacities evolve.

The indicator tracks the percentage of river, lake and groundwater bodies in a country with good ambient water quality. “Good” indicates an ambient water quality that does not damage ecosystem function or human health according to core ambient water quality parameters. This includes through in situ monitoring of five core parameter groups:

  • oxygen (surface water)
  • salinity (surface water and groundwater)
  • nitrogen (surface water and groundwater)
  • phosphorus (surface water)
  • pH (surface water and groundwater

The Global Environment Monitoring Systems supports the collection of in situ data on water quality.

Resources:

6.3.2 Metadata
6.3.2 Methodology

6.3.2 Support Plartform

6.3.2 Data
6.3.2 Freshwater Quality Monitoring Programme Design Course
6.3.2 Contact: sdg632@un.org

Progress on Ambient Water Quality – 2021 Update

6.3.2 Measuring ambient water quality (with caption)
6.3.2 Progress on ambient water quality (Story)

Partners: