River Monitoring and Assessment Methods Based on Macroinvertebrates

Pauw, Niels De; Gabriëls, Wim; Goethals, Peter

doi:10.1002/0470863781.ch7

Cited by 36 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 48 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…From management and policy perspectives, increasing diagnostic capability of ecological indices and identification of ecologically relevant thresholds are needed (De Pauw et al 2006). Ecological indices in most cases report only about the status of an ecosystem (or part of it) or the deviation from a preset reference condition.…”

Section: Bioassessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traits‐based approaches in bioassessment and ecological risk assessment: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

Brink

Alexander

Desrosiers³

et al. 2011

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We discuss the application of traits-based bioassessment approaches in retrospective bioassessment as well as in prospective ecological risk assessments in regulatory frameworks. Both approaches address the interaction between species and stressors and their consequences at different levels of biological organization, but the fact that a specific species may be less abundant in a potentially impacted site compared with a reference site is, regrettably, insufficient to provide diagnostic information. Species traits may, however, overcome the problems associated with taxonomy-based bioassessment. Trait-based approaches could provide signals regarding what environmental factors may be responsible for the impairment and, thereby, provide causal insight into the interaction between species and stressors. For development of traits-based (TBA), traits should correspond to specific types of stressors or suites of stressors. In this paper, a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of TBA in both applications was used to identify challenges and potentials. This paper is part of a series describing the output of the TERA (Traits-based ecological risk assessment: Realising the potential of ecoinformatics approaches in ecotoxicology) Workshop held between 7 and 11 September, 2009, in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. The recognized strengths were that traits are transferrable across geographies, add mechanistic and diagnostic knowledge, require no new sampling methodology, have an old tradition, and can supplement taxonomic analysis. Weaknesses include autocorrelation, redundancy, and inability to protect biodiversity directly. Automated image analysis, combined with genetic and biotechnology tools and improved data analysis to solve autocorrelation problems were identified as opportunities, whereas low availability of trait data, their transferability, their quantitative interpretation, the risk of developing nonrelevant traits, low quality of historic databases, and their standardization were listed as threats.

show abstract

Section: Bioassessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traits‐based approaches in bioassessment and ecological risk assessment: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

Brink

Alexander

Desrosiers³

et al. 2011

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Instead, it has become an accepted approach to sample with sufficient effort distributed over some standard site length to yield some pre-specified (fixed count) number of individuals (100-500), depending on the desired difference detection probability Cao et al, 2001;Cao et al, 2002;Flotemersch et al, 2006a;Hughes and Peck, 2008). The approach that has evolved for benthic macroinvertebrate sampling is to have measured effort expended throughout the site length, either distributed in habitat types roughly proportional to their frequency of occurrence in the site Barbour et al, 2006), or at some level along discrete transects systematically distributed along the entire site (Flotemersch et al, 2006a(Flotemersch et al, , 2006bDe Pauw et al, 2006;USEPA, 2007;Hughes and Peck, 2008). In both approaches, the specific sub-samples are usually composited into a site-wide sample.…”

Section: Benthic Macroinvertebratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Site length for biological assessment of boatable rivers

Flotemersch

Stribling

Hughes

et al. 2011

River Research & Apps

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is increasing international interest by water resource management agencies worldwide in developing the capacity for quantitative bioassessments of boatable rivers. This interest stems from legal mandates requiring assessments, plus growing recognition of the threats to such systems from multiple and co-varying stressors (e.g. chemical pollutants, physical habitat alterations, altered flow regimes, channel modifications and alien species). The elevated cost and inefficiencies of jurisdictionally-and taxonomicallysegregated assessments is widely recognized, as is the desire to obtain comparable data that can be easily shared among political jurisdictions and ecological regions. The objectives, sampling methods, indicators, site-scale sampling designs and geographic extent of the resources being sampled differ among programmes, thereby limiting such data exchanges. Our objective in this paper is to review major biological assessment design alternatives for boatable rivers, with special attention given to the sample site length from which data are collected. We suggest that sufficient site length determinations should be based on the survey objectives, the relative heterogeneity of the habitat template, and the quality of data necessary for meeting programmatic data quality objectives. Future sampling effort studies should be designed to allow separate samples of several short sub-sites at many diverse sites to generate multiple data points for each site. Data from those multiple sub-sites should be analysed using randomization-based data evaluation methods. We hope that our recommendations will be useful to the maximum number of institutions, including those with limited funds and a purely local focus, as well as those responsible for sampling at continental geographic extents.

show abstract

“…Sixty six macroinvertebrate taxa were sampled during 2000 and 2001 in the Zwalm river basin and identified upon genus, group or family level as defined by De Pauw and Vannevel (1991). The SR clustering resulted in five clusters.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, within each river basin district, all water bodies must be classified according to an ecologically relevant typology (Chave 2001). For the biotic assessment of rivers in Flanders (Belgium), the Belgian Biotic Index (BBI) (De Pauw and Vanhooren 1983;De Pauw and Vannevel 1991) and the Belgian Sediment Index (BSI) (De Pauw and Heylen 2001), which both are based on diversity and tolerance of macroinvertebrate taxa, are currently used as a standard tool. However, these indices are not yet differentiated per river type but applied in a uniform way in Flanders.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of clustering techniques for the characterization of macroinvertebrate communities to support river restoration management

et al. 2006

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The European Water Framework Directive prescribes that the development of a river assessment system should be based on an ecological typology taking the biological reference conditions of each river type as a starting point. Aside from this assessment, water managers responsible for river restoration actions also need to know the steering environmental factors to meet these reference conditions for biological communities in each ecological river type. As such, an ecological typology based on biological communities is a necessity for efficient river management. In this study, different clustering techniques including the Sørensen similarity ratio, ordination analysis and self-organizing maps were applied to come to an ecological classification of a river. For this purpose, a series of sites within the Zwalm river basin (Flanders, Belgium) were monitored. These river sites were then characterized in terms of biotic (macroinvertebrates), physical-chemical and habitat variables. The cluster analysis resulted in a series of characteristic biotic communities that are found under certain environmental conditions, natural as well as human-influenced. The use of multiple clustering techniques can be of advantage to draw more straightforward and robust conclusions with regard to the ecological classification of river sites. The application of the clustering techniques on the Zwalm river basin, allowed for distinguishing five mutually isolated clusters, characterized by their natural typology and their pollution status. On the basis of this study, one may conclude that river management could benefit from the use of clustering methods for the interpretation of large quantities of data. Furthermore, the clustering results might enable the development of a cenotypology useful for efficiently steering river restoration and enabling river managers to meet a good ecological status in most of the rivers as set by the European Water Framework Directive.

show abstract

River Monitoring and Assessment Methods Based on Macroinvertebrates

Cited by 36 publications

References 48 publications

Traits‐based approaches in bioassessment and ecological risk assessment: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

Traits‐based approaches in bioassessment and ecological risk assessment: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

Site length for biological assessment of boatable rivers

Application of clustering techniques for the characterization of macroinvertebrate communities to support river restoration management

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About