Buzău River basin is the basin of one of the most important tributaries of the Siret River, which brings a water intake of about 14% of the flow. It is located in the south-eastern Carpathians, draining the mountains Ciucaşului, Siriu, Horse Bridge, Penteleu Monteoru and then the two sub-Carpathian area and an area north-east of the Romanian Plain. The total area of the basin is 5264 km2, with a length of 1656 km.

Water quality monitoring is the activity of standardized measurements and continues observations for long-term knowledge and assessment of water characteristic parameters for water management and defining the status and trends of its evolution.

The new concept of integrated water monitoring requires a threefold approach:

• Areas of investigation at the catchment scale: rivers, lakes, transitional waters, coastal marine waters, water bodies, heavily modified and artificial water bodies, groundwater, tributaries;
• investigation of media: water, sediment / suspended solids, biota;
• Elements / components monitored: biological, chemical and physical hydro morphological qualitatively and quantitatively. . According to the Integrated Monitoring Framework Directive must be based on the principle of ecosystem and biological approach.

According to the principle of ecosystem approach water is seen not as a resource for complex uses, but as an intrinsic environmental value ecosystem, presenting two major compartments: the mass of water and sediments, which are integrated biological components.

Biological approach is based on the principle features of investigating biological components, which are considered key elements in assessing the ecological status of watercourses.

There are several steps that should be covered under the new integrated monitoring of water:

A. Establish a classification of surface water, so the system of surface water monitoring will be represented by seven subsystems, two of which are sub-November:

• Subsystem rivers
• Subsystem lakes;
• Subsystem transitional waters
• Subsystem coastal marine waters;
• Heavily modified and artificial water subsystem;
• Groundwater subsystem;
• Wastewater subsystem.

Monitoring network is structured so as to provide a coherent and comprehensive overview of the ecological and chemical status within each river basin and shall permit classification of water masses in five quality classes.

In accordance with the provisions of the Water Framework Directive, national water monitoring system will comprise three types of monitoring, namely:

• Surveillance monitoring;
• Operational monitoring;
• Monitoring investigation.

Surveillance monitoring is to assess the status of all waters within each basin or sub-basin, providing information to: validate the impact assessment procedure, efficient design of future monitoring, assessing long-term changes to natural conditions, such as and evaluating long-term changes to human activities impact on water resources.

Operational monitoring should be conducted for all those bodies of water, either the impact assessment according to Annex II of the Framework Directive, is based on surveillance monitoring are identified as being at risk of failing to meet environmental objectives.

Aims to establish operational monitoring of aquatic ecosystems that are at risk of failing to meet environmental objectives and assess any changes in status of such aquatic ecosystems, changes resulting from action programs.

Monitoring investigation is conducted to: identify the causes of overcoming of the limits set quality standards and other environmental regulations for certification of cases for which a body can not achieve environmental objectives (where surveillance monitoring indicates that the objectives set for water body can not be achieved and operational monitoring has not yet been established) and to determine the impact of accidental pollution.

Media inquiry Under the Framework Directive and other directives in the field of water environments there are identified the following investigation is necessary to extend the approach primarily sediment and biotic environment: water, sediment / suspended solids and biota.

Assessment of ecological status of rivers is based on biological elements, hydro-morphological and physico-chemical quality. Biological quality elements are priority concerns of the main species composition and abundance of biotic communities.

In this respect Framework Directive requires monitoring of biological elements, represented by macrophytes, fish and fauna phytobenthos, items not addressed in the current water monitoring system and a host of parameters for the new procedure of analysis / investigation and assessment are necessary.

The following should also be monitored in all media investigation – water / sediment / biota of priority substances / dangerous that requires the development of new analytical methods and quality standards and the existence of highly advanced laboratory equipment with very high sensitivity.

Framework Directive provides a classification system for surface water quality into five grades of quality:

Very good quality (I) is characterized by biological factors associated with those values in reference areas or anthropogenic alterations minor anthropogenic alterations of the values of physico-chemical and surface water hydro morphological not exist or are minor compared to normal values in terms unaltered. It is used the graphical representation of the colour blue.

Good Quality (II) – the values of surface water biological alterations present low levels as a result of human action and differ only slightly from normal values. It is used the green for graphical representation.

Moderate quality (III) – moderate values of the biological elements deviate from normal values associated with water in reference conditions. Values indicate a moderate deterioration of water resulting from human activity. Yellow is used for graphical representation

Satisfactory quality (IV) – there is major alteration of the biological quality elements, the relevant biological communities differ substantially from those normally associated with reference conditions. It is used the orange for graphical representation.

Degraded (V) – severe deterioration of the biological values of quality, a large number of relevant biological communities are absent from the present terms of reference. It is used the red for graphical representation.