According to Article 5 of the Directive 2008/105/EC on Environmental Quality Standards in the Field of Water Policy, Member States have to establish an inventory of emissions, discharges and losses of all priority substances and pollutants listed in Part A of Annex I to this Directive. This paper aims at describing the french approach used to review of the impact of human activity on the status of surface waters through : the general working shem of the methodology and few definitions ; the input data needed for the french approach ; some exemples of calculations carried out on French river basins ; the data compilation process. Methodology definition was guided by the following key ideas : a state-of-the-art methodology in agrement with reglementory requirments, and EU guidance ; a non substance specific methodology. The approach is based on effluent discharges data, in their absence some explicit estimation formulas are proposed ; a single methodology applicable at different spatial scales ; a methodology that will work despite scarcity of information and data, and uncertainties ; future use of emission inventory as a management tool for designing strategies for the reduction of the impacts of chemical pollution in watersheds ; a methodology which can easily deals with data from different years. All available information which are representative of a given year to draw a coherent picture of the micro pollutants releases in surface waters during this year must be used. After a bibliographical study, a pragmatic approach has also presided over the construction of the methodology developed in this paper in terms of work efficiency.
