Analysis of Acid Mine Drainage Impacted Streams Using a Periphyton Index

Abstract

Fifteen stream segments in an acid mine drainage (AMD) impacted basin were sampled for periphyton, measured for water chemistry and evaluated for physical habitat in June, August and October in order to assess stream quality. Periphyton index of biotic integrity (PIBI) scores for individual stream segments varied among sampling dates, with the June and October scores being significantly different (~4. 0 5). The PIBI scores were correlated with six water chemistry variables in August and with at least one variable indicative of AMD in June and October. However, the PIBI scores and the individual metrics were generally not correlated to the measures of physical habitat. Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (NMS) of water chemistry data identified four groups of streamsreference streams, heavily impacted streams, and two groups of moderately impacted streams. The same groupings were not evident in the NMS biplots of the PIBI scores, but the heavily impacted stream and reference stream groups were distinguished for the June and August data. When the PIBI scores were recalculated using only the correlated six water chemistry variables, the NMS biplot for the August data distinguished the four groups from the water chemistry data.

Residual Toxicity of Acid Mine Drainage-Contaminated Sediment to Stream Macroinvertebrates: Relative Contribution of Acidity vs. Metals

“…The chemical and biological integrity of the study sites have been well characterized in recent years by community watershed groups, their agency partners, and research theses of Ohio University graduate students (ILGARD 1999;SCWG 2003;ILGARD 2003;Last 2001;Hill 2002;Kanuckel 2003;Hamsher 2003). Table 2 summarizes the range of acidity, pH, total Al, total Mn, sulfates and specific conductivity found in water column samples collected between June and October from 2000 to 2002.…”

Recent views on river pollution and diatoms

“…Some models enable assessment of the effect of acidification on the basis of measurement of similarity to a reference community . Biotic diatom indices have been developed to assess the effect of mine drainage (USA: Hamsher et al, 2004, Scandinavia: Andren & Jarlman, 2008 and show their usefulness when macroinvertebrates cannot be used (Zalack & Vis, 2006). Hill et al (2000a) developed a multimetric index based on genera richness, relative abundance of diatom/cyanobacteria, acidophilic diatoms, motile diatoms, and eutraphentic diatoms, and showed good correlation with stream acidity, stream substrate composition, and stream and riparian habitat.…”

Development and evaluation of a diatom-based index of biotic integrity (D-IBI) for rivers impacted by run-of-river dams

“…Moreover, sites in different regions have not always been correctly identified as impacted or reference sites by certain indices. For instances, Hill et al (2000) introduced the periphyton index of biotic integrity (P-BI), which was comprised of 10 metrics chosen to indicate various stressors, has not responded as predicted in all cases (Hill et al, 2000;Hamsher et al, 2004). This was not surprising since diatom communities showed great variability among different regions, which may result in the need to either regionally calibrate metrics or create and test different metrics that indicate stressors that may vary among regions.…”