Eurostat waste water statistics training
The ESTP is the training programme implemented by Eurostat for the EU Member States representatives. Statisticians working in national statistics institute can apply to one or more training session on a wide variety of topics, including water, waste water and water accounts, but also air or forest. The training programme is established for 4 years and Eurostat publishes a call on all topics divided in lots by topic, one lot is always dedictaed to water and waste water statistics.
OIEau has been involved in the training programme for water and waste water in the last 2 periods of the Eurostat training programme, namely 2012-2016 and 2016-2020, and have organised regularly one week training sessions together with UmweltBundesAmt Austria, either in Vienna or in Paris. The training session comprises generally a training on each table of the Eurostat-OECD joint questionnaire on water statistics which covers the entire water cycle from abstraction to discharge including emission to water. The session are organised in interactive mode, allowing participants to come with their own data and problems and exchange with others, but also use serious game and training exercises to progress on their knowledge. It includes a study tour on abstraction and waste water facilities to allow trainees better understand the concepts used. After training support is also provided to allow trainees raise additional questions based on their experioence and remaining uncertainties. Trainres also bring their own experience and present the situation in their own country to illustrate part of the approach, and choices made. The objective of the training is to remind participants with the key concepts used, what is expected to allow a European overview out of the national datasets reported, make them aware of alternative sources of information, possibilities of data checking and other quality control options, but also show them the Regional Environment Questionnaire, which is linked to the summary national statistics. The Eurostat guidance is also largely used to illustrate the best way to populate the questionnaire, gather the data, sum them up...