“HKH screening”: a field bio-assessment to evaluate the ecological status of streams in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region

Hartmann, Anne; Moog, Otto; Stubauer, Ilse

doi:10.1007/s10750-010-0288-6

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…We used the Rapid Stream Assessment (RSA) for Himalayan streams (Hartmann et al 2010 ; Shah and Shah 2013 ) to assess ecological stream health at each sampling location. RSA has been used as an integrated and robust method to assess ecological stream health for over 5 years.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Shrestha et al ( 2008 ) mapped the water quality of the Bagmati River in the Kathmandu Valley and found that water quality was extremely poor in rivers sections inside built areas, fair in agricultural dominated areas, and good in most upper stretches of the rivers which are generally forested and inside protected areas. In the meantime, biological methods have been developed and evaluated for integrated measurement of the status of water quality in rivers (e.g., Hartmann et al 2010 ; Shah and Shah 2012 ). Shah and Shah ( 2013 ) presented benthic macroinvertebrate assemblage as an indicator of ecological status along the Bagmati River and a few tributaries in the Kathmandu Valley.…”

Section: Background and Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying the connections—linkages between land-use and water in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Davids

Rutten

Shah

et al. 2018

Environ Monit Assess

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Land development without thoughtful water supply planning can lead to unsustainability. In practice, management of our lands and waters is often unintegrated. We present new land-use, ecological stream health, water quality, and streamflow data from nine perennial watersheds in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, in the 2016 monsoon (i.e., August and September) and 2017 pre-monsoon (i.e., April and May) periods. Our goal was to improve understanding of the longitudinal linkages between land-use and water. At a total of 38 locations, the Rapid Stream Assessment (RSA) protocol was used to characterize stream ecology, basic water quality parameters were collected with a handheld WTW multi-parameter meter, and stream flow was measured with a SonTek FlowTracker Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter. A pixel-based supervised classification method was used to create a 30-m gridded land use coverage from a Landsat 8 image scene captured in the fall of 2015. Our results indicated that land-use had a statistically significant impact on water quality, with built land-uses (high and low) having the greatest influence. Upstream locations of six of the nine watersheds investigated had near natural status (i.e., river quality class (RQC) 1) and water could be used for all purposes (after standard treatments as required). However, downstream RSA measurements for all nine watersheds had RQC 5 (i.e., most highly impaired). Generally, water quality deteriorated from monsoon 2016 to pre-monsoon 2017. Our findings reinforce the importance of integrated land and water management and highlight the urgency of addressing waste management issues in the Kathmandu Valley.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10661-018-6687-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Background and Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the connections—linkages between land-use and water in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Davids

Rutten

Shah

et al. 2018

Environ Monit Assess

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“…Untreated VWW were collected from the discharge points DP1 (Figure1(c)) and DP2 (Figure1( (Figure 1(d)). All the sampling sites were preassessed using Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) screening protocol (Hartmann, Moog, & Stubauer, 2010) to confirm the status of the sites. HKH screening protocol is a macroinvertebratebased field screening method for assessing the ecological status of rivers in the HKH region.…”

Section: Sampling Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled once in a month from the sampling sites of the Olarong Chhu and the Paa Chhu in premonsoon and postmonsoon seasons of 2016 using a multihabitat sampling approach (Moog, 2007). Since sampling was done after screening the sites with HKH screening protocol (Hartmann et al, 2010), macroinvertebrates were collected from 10 sampling units covering all representative habitat types with a share of at least 5% coverage within 100 m distance. Benthic macroinvertebrates were collected using D-frame net of 25 cm × 25 cm and a mesh size of 500 µm.…”

Section: Sampling Of Macroinvertebratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the impacts of vehicle wash wastewater on surface water quality through physico-chemical and benthic macroinvertebrates analyses

et al. 2020

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Vehicle wash wastewater (VWW) contains a wide range of contaminants and discharge of such contaminated wastewater into the surface water bodies degrade water quality and affect aquatic ecosystems. This study, presents an impacts of discharging VWW into the stream Olarong Chhu in Thimphu and river Paa Chhu in Paro using water chemistry and benthic macroinvertebrates data sets obtained over a period of 6 months. Water samples and benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled once in a month from upstream, impact, and downstream sites in premonsoon (March to May) and post-monsoon (September to November) seasons in 2016. Significant levels of contaminants associated with vehicle washing were detected in water samples of impact sites whose cumulative effects on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages were supported by HKHbios index, biological indices, and statistical analyzes. Canonical correspondence analysis indicated that T, dissolved oxygen, pH, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids, turbidity, oil and grease, and sulfate significantly alter water quality and affect benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages. With the increasing number of vehicles, management of VWW is becoming a serious issue in Bhutan. Hence, there should be proper enforcement of water and environmental legislations and effective measures like constructions of wastewater treatment facilities should be considered for protecting Bhutan's surface water resources and aquatic ecosystems.

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“…A number of countries in tropical Africa, Asia and South America, including Brazil, have been developing macroinvertebrate-based bioassessment methods for their own aquatic ecosystems (e.g. Palmer et al, 1996;Junqueira & Campos, 1998;Junqueira et al, 2000;Palmer & Taylor, 2004;Silveira et al, 2005;Buss & Borges, 2008;Monteiro et al, 2008;Roque et al, 2008;Dallas, 2009;Hartmann et al, 2010;Lowe et al, 2012a;Melo et al, 2015). The Zambian Invertebrate Scoring System (ZISS) is one such example.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of alternative macroinvertebrate sampling techniques for use in a new tropical freshwater bioassessment scheme

Moore

Murphy

2015

Acta Limnol. Bras.

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Aim: The study aimed to determine the effectiveness of benthic macroinvertebrate dredge net sampling procedures as an alternative method to kick net sampling in tropical freshwater systems, specifically as an evaluation of sampling methods used in the Zambian Invertebrate Scoring System (ZISS) river bioassessment scheme. Tropical freshwater ecosystems are sometimes dangerous or inaccessible to sampling teams using traditional kick-sampling methods, so identifying an alternative procedure that produces similar results is necessary in order to collect data from a wide variety of habitats.MethodsBoth kick and dredge nets were used to collect macroinvertebrate samples at 16 riverine sites in Zambia, ranging from backwaters and floodplain lagoons to fast flowing streams and rivers. The data were used to calculate ZISS, diversity (S: number of taxa present), and Average Score Per Taxon (ASPT) scores per site, using the two sampling methods to compare their sampling effectiveness. Environmental parameters, namely pH, conductivity, underwater photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), temperature, alkalinity, flow, and altitude, were also recorded and used in statistical analysis. Invertebrate communities present at the sample sites were determined using multivariate procedures.ResultsAnalysis of the invertebrate community and environmental data suggested that the testing exercise was undertaken in four distinct macroinvertebrate community types, supporting at least two quite different macroinvertebrate assemblages, and showing significant differences in habitat conditions. Significant correlations were found for all three bioassessment score variables between results acquired using the two methods, with dredge-sampling normally producing lower scores than did the kick net procedures. Linear regression models were produced in order to correct each biological variable score collected by a dredge net to a score similar to that of one collected by kick net sampling.ConclusionsThe use of a dredge net in macroinvertebrate bioassessment schemes is an effective, alternative method in certain environments when site conditions prohibit the use of the preferred kick net sampling method. The results of this study can be used to aid in the development of other tropical freshwater bioassessment schemes around the world, including Brazil.

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“HKH screening”: a field bio-assessment to evaluate the ecological status of streams in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region

Abstract: A macro-invertebrate-based field screening method for assessing the ecological status of rivers in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region is presented herein. The method was developed within an EU-funded project called '

Cited by 17 publications

References 25 publications

Quantifying the connections—linkages between land-use and water in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Quantifying the connections—linkages between land-use and water in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Assessing the impacts of vehicle wash wastewater on surface water quality through physico-chemical and benthic macroinvertebrates analyses

Evaluation of alternative macroinvertebrate sampling techniques for use in a new tropical freshwater bioassessment scheme

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