A Preliminary Index of Biotic Integrity for Monitoring the Condition of the Rio Paraiba do Sul, Southeast Brazil

Araújo, Francisco Gerson; Fichberg, Ilana; Pinto, Benjamin Carvalho Teixeira; Peixoto, Magna Galvão

doi:10.1007/s00267-003-3003-9

Cited by 76 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Araujo et al, 2003;Carvalho and Magrini, 2006;Pereira et al, 2006). In our interviews, various stakeholders expressed their concern about the competence of the new committee to deal with old and new water management problems.…”

Section: Case Study Of the Paraíba Do Sul River Basin (Psrb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It led to serious disputes between upstream and downstream water users related to the impacts of environmental degradation and the failure to observe environmental legislation (Gruben et al, 2002). Treacherous biological conditions are particularly evident in the middle section of the Paraíba do Sul River where most of industry and hydroelectricity are located (Araujo et al 2003). The more polluted river stretches have rates of coliform bacteria between 50 and 160 times the legal threshold; water pollution is aggravated by the fact that only 17.6% of the catchment sewage receives some form of treatment (Coppetec, 2006).…”

Section: Case Study Of the Paraíba Do Sul River Basin (Psrb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Water reforms in Brazil: opportunities and constraints

Ioris

2009

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

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The last decade saw repeated attempts to adopt and implement an integrated management of water in Brazil. Internationally established principles, such as water economics and public participation, have influenced the development of a novel regulatory framework for water use and conservation in the country. However, despite changes in policies and in the legislation, the opportunity to address old and new management problems has been largely frustrated by the internal contradictions of the ongoing institutional reforms. A case study of the Paraiba do Sul River Basin demonstrates the distance between, on the one hand, calls for decentralisation and responsibility sharing and, on the other hand, the persistence of bureaucratised and exclusionary practices. The main distortion is the excessive effort expended on the introduction of water pricing and environmental charges, a controversial policy instrument that has dominated the agenda of the new river basin committee, at the expense of addressing river restoration, public mobilisation and environmental justice.water regulation, integrated water resource management (IWRM), water charges, water pricing, public participation, Paraiba do Sul, Brazil,

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Section: Case Study Of the Paraíba Do Sul River Basin (Psrb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case Study Of the Paraíba Do Sul River Basin (Psrb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Water reforms in Brazil: opportunities and constraints

Ioris

2009

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

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“…Expanding the application of the IBI associated to studies with environmental quality descriptors such as water quality, physical habitat structure and the life history of land use (Oberdorff et al, 2002) is abundant (Angermeier and Davideanu, 2004;Bozzetti and Schulz, 2004;Araújo et al, 2003;Stauffer et al, 2000). From the composition of descriptors of environmental quality, an Index of Environmental Quality (IEQ) can be created that can be used to evaluate the sensitivity of the IBI to environmental changes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of environmental quality and mesohabitat structure on a Biotic Integrity Index based on fish assemblages of cerrado streams from Rio Cuiabá basin, Brazil

Machado

Venticinque

Penha³

2011

Braz. J. Biol.

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Over the last 30 years, the Cerrado has been experiencing various antropic impacts that have brought about alterations to species composition, structure and functioning of aquatic habitats. Therefore, studies on negative impacts are useful to prevent future damage and restore environmental quality. The objectives of our study were: i) to adapt an index of biotic integrity of streams in the Rio Cuiabá Basin and ii) to analyze if the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) correlated with the environmental quality measured by the Index of Environmental Quality (IEQ) and with the mesohabitat structure. We sampled 26 streams in sub-basins of the Cuiabá River. In each stream, we closed a stretch of 50 m with blockage nets and used electrofishing to capture fish. To obtain a measure of environmental quality in sampled units, we characterized the stream and its micro basin. For the analyses, we used the Spearman Correlation, Kruskal-Wallis test and Analysis of Multiple Regression. We collected 697 individuals distributed into 6 orders, 15 families and 49 species. The IBI followed changes on environmental quality measured by IEQ when we removed streams that present natural barriers from the analysis (r 2 = 0.4; r 2 = 0.58). Types of land use did not affect the biotic integrity (n = 26; df = 4; H = 4,860; p = 0.302), but natural and artificial barriers affected it (n = 26; df = 4; H = 11,027; p = 0.026). The IBI was not sensitive to variations in mesohabitat structure (F 2,23 = 0.373; r 2 = 0.031; Axe 1 p = 0.620; Axe 2 p = 0.490). The IBI is certainly a reasonable instrument for evaluating changes in the environment, but we cannot ignore the fact that we were able to obtain the same result with any combinations of metrics. This makes its analysis and interpretation difficult.Keywords: environmental quality, headwaters, ecosystems health, fish community, agriculture, land use, aquatic ecosystems.Efeito da qualidade ambiental e da estrutura do meso-habitat sobre um índice de integridade biótica baseado em assembleias de peixes de córregos de cerrado da bacia do rio Cuiabá, Brasil ResumoNos últimos 30 anos, o cerrado tem sofrido severos impactos antrópicos que provocam alterações na composição de espécies, na estrutura e no funcionamento de habitats aquáticos. Dessa forma, estudos sobre impactos negativos são úteis para prevenir futuras degradações e restaurar a qualidade ambiental. Os objetivos do nosso estudo foram: i) adaptar um índice de integridade biótica para os riachos da bacia do rio Cuiabá e ii) analisar se o índice de integridade biótica (IIB) é correlacionado com a qualidade ambiental medida pelo índice de qualidade ambiental (IQA) e com a estrutura do meso-habitat. Amostramos 26 riachos da sub-bacia do rio Cuiabá; em cada um deles, delimitados um segmento de 50 m, utilizando a pesca elétrica como método de coleta. Para obter a medida de qualidade ambiental nas unidades amostradas, caracterizamos os riachos e sua microbacia. Para as análises nós usamos a correlação de Sperman, o teste Kruskal-Wallis e a análise...

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“…In Brazil, most IBI studies have been carried out in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Araújo (1998), Araújo et al (2003), Pinto and Araújo (2007), Pinto et al (2006) developed studies to adapt the index to the Paraíba do Sul river in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Ferreira and Casatti (2006) did the same in the state of São Paulo, and Casatti et al (2009) in the Upper Paraná River basin.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The fish community as an indicator of biotic integrity of the streams in the Sinos River basin, Brazil

2010

Braz. J. Biol.

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The basin of the Sinos River, located in the northeastern part of Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, has been highly impacted by industrial and urban activities. Water quality is low because of domestic and industrial sewage discharges. Most of the tributaries have suffered drastic structural interventions like canalisations and the removal of riparian vegetation. The aims of this study were to: 1) assess the diversity of fish at 34 sampling sites in twenty-four tributaries of the Sinos River basin; 2) quantify impact level by the Shannon-Wiener diversity index and an adapted Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI); and 3) check the interference of environmental impacts, formerly quantified in a Stream Corridor Assessment Survey (SCAS), on the fish assembly and 4) compare the relationship between the IBI with stream order. Fish sampling was performed by electric fishing in the period from April 2004 to August 2006. A total of 4,869 individuals were sampled, representing 61 species, 14 families and six orders. Significant relationships of the Shannon-Wiener index and IBI with SCAS scores and stream orders were found. Of all impacts that make up the SCAS score, only channel modifications were significantly correlated with IBI. These results indicate that the adaptation of the IBI was effective and performed better than the Shannon-Wiener diversity index when related directly to specific impact categories. The application of the IBI with the SCAS and the other variables was efficient in the tributaries of the Sinos River basin because it showed the biotic degradation in accordance with changes in physical habitat. Keywords

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A Preliminary Index of Biotic Integrity for Monitoring the Condition of the Rio Paraiba do Sul, Southeast Brazil

Cited by 76 publications

References 18 publications

Water reforms in Brazil: opportunities and constraints

Water reforms in Brazil: opportunities and constraints

Effect of environmental quality and mesohabitat structure on a Biotic Integrity Index based on fish assemblages of cerrado streams from Rio Cuiabá basin, Brazil

The fish community as an indicator of biotic integrity of the streams in the Sinos River basin, Brazil

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