Application of the Benthic Ecosystem Quality Index 2 to benthos in Dutch transitional and coastal waters

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe Benthic Ecosystem Quality Index 2 (BEQI2) is the Dutch multi-metric index (MMI) for assessing the status and trend of benthic invertebrates in transitional and coastal waters for the Water Framework Directive (WFD). It contains the same indicators, i.e. species richness, Shannon index and AMBI, as in the multivariate m-AMBI. The latter MMI has been adopted by several European countries in the context of WFD implementation. In contrast to m-AMBI, the BEQI2 calculation procedure has been strongly simplified and consists of two steps, i.e. the separate indicator values are normalized using their long-term reference values resulting in three Ecological Quality Ratios (EQRs), which are subsequently averaged to give one BEQI2 value. Using this method only small numbers of samples need to be analysed by Dutch benthos laboratories annually, without the necessity to co-analyse a larger historical dataset. BEQI2 EQR values appeared to correlate quantitatively very well with m-AMBI EQR values. In addition, a data pooling procedure has been added to the BEQI2 tool which enables the pooling of small core samples (0.01-0.025 m 2 ) into larger standardized data pools of 0.1 m 2 in order to meet the data requirements of the AMBI indicator and to obtain comparable reference values. Furthermore, the BEQI2 tool automatically and efficiently converts species synonym names into standardized species names. The BEQI2 tool has been applied to all Dutch benthos data monitored by Rijkswaterstaat in the period of 1991-2010 in the transitional and coastal waters and salt lakes and these results are reported here for the first time. Reference values for species richness and Shannon index (99 percentile values) and AMBI reference values (1 percentile values) were estimated for all water body-ecotopes and are discussed. BEQI2 results for all these water bodies are discussed in view of natural and human pressures. The pressure sensitivity of the BEQI2 for sewage and dredging/dumping, via the state variables oxygen and suspended matter respectively, was demonstrated.

Macrozoobenthos as bioindicator of ecological status in Tanjung Pasir Coastal, Tangerang District, Banten Province, Indonesia

“…Macrozoobenthos movement is very limited, and relative settle on a particular substrate, make macrozoobenthos more sensitive to environmental pressure as like water quality declamation and sediment (Manoharan et al 2011;van Loon et al 2015;Wardiatno et al 2017). Physical, chemical and biological changes are the indicator of coastal water quality declamation (Sharma et al 2018).…”

Response of a marine benthic invertebrate community and biotic indices to organic enrichment from sewage disposal

“…The use of multi-metric indices such as IQI is largely policy driven (Phillips et al ., 2014; van Loon et al ., 2015). Multi-metric indices should magnify a common signal in the combined metrics (Schoolmaster et al ., 2012).…”

“…In Europe, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires the achievement of at least good ecological status (GES) in transitional and coastal waters (EC, 2000). Indices are routinely used to assess environmental quality within the framework of this Directive (van Loon et al ., 2015), therefore it is essential that these indices are effective and sensitive. There are important environmental, legislative and financial implications for policy implementation when the indices used in routine monitoring over-estimate the quality of poor areas or under-estimate quality of good areas (Quintino et al ., 2006).…”

“…This approach was adopted in different European countries to fulfil reporting for the WFD. For example, in the UK, routine monitoring makes use of the Infaunal Quality Index (IQI) (WFD-UKTAG, 2008; Phillips et al ., 2014), which includes Simpsons Index of evenness, AMBI and species richness, while monitoring in the Netherlands uses the Benthic Ecosystem Quality Index 2 (van Loon et al ., 2015). The underlying theory of different indices dictates a range of expected responses of indices to the effect of organic enrichment (see Table 1 for a description of these responses in a selection of indices).…”

Adaptation and application of multivariate AMBI (M-AMBI) in US coastal waters

“…In its original formulation, the European M-AMBI used scaled expectations of species diversity and species richness to overcome poor index performance in low salinity habitats (Muxika et al, 2007). Other authors tried also to overcome these problems, by modifying the method, the reference conditions or the condition class boundaries, both in Europe (Teixeira et al, 2009;Sigovini et al, 2013;van Loon et al, 2015) and in other continents (Borja and Tunberg, 2011;Forde et al, 2013;Cai et al, 2014;Feebarani et al, 2016). In our index development process, we considered additional macrobenthic community metrics that would have a wider range in response and potentially provide better discrimination in low salinity habitats than species richness or diversity.…”