Under its ‘Framework contract for Evaluation, review and development of EU Water Policy', the European Commission DG Environment has issued a service request for a Specific Contract to provide "Support for the elaboration of guidance on WFD harmonised environmental requirements for HMWB and hydromorphology". The aim of this Specific Contract is to ensure support for the follow-up activities towards the further elaboration of deliverables as outlined in the Terms of Reference of the Ad-Hoc Task Group on Hydromorphology. The requested services include the provision to the Water Unit in DG Environment of independent and timely support and advice on scientific, socio-economic and technical issues related to the activities of the ATG. This includes the provision of products of high technical quality as specified in the description of tasks and deliverables.

The specific objectives of the contract include:

1. Support the co-leads of the ATG on Hydromorphology on the elaboration of the guidance on harmonised environmental requirements and emerging good practices for HMWB, to be published as an Appendix to CIS Guidance n°4, including:
   a) Providing support to the step-wise drafting of the guidance;
   b) Preparation of an informative and illustrative mitigation measures library for key water uses;
   c) Collection and processing of information from the templates on good ecological potential (GEP) for water storage and supporting the collection of case studies for other uses;
   d) Preparation, execution and reporting of a workshop on “Significant adverse effects on the use and the wider environment”
2. Support the co-leads of the ATG Hydromorphology in the preparation, execution and reporting of a workshop on the linkages between supporting elements and BQEs and the use of supporting elements and BQEs in classification.
3. Support the co-leads of the ATG Hydromorphology in the preparation of a draft resource document describing the role of hydromorphology in WFD implementation.
4. Support the co-leads of the ATG Hydromorphology and the CIS Working Group on Floods to prepare, execute and report on a workshop facilitating knowledge exchange on WFD hydromorphology and the linkage to the EU Floods Directive.