Use of stream order and biological indices to assess water quality in the Osage and Black river basins of Missouri

Abstract

Significant variations in four biological measures of water quality with stream order and river basin were demonstrated for streams of the Black and Osage river basins of Missouri. Water quality criteria specific for each order and basin were then developed.Benthic macroinvertebrates from springs and stream orders 3-8 in the two river basins were sampled quarterly for one year with rime nets and artificial substrate samplers. A total of 548 samples were taken at 137 stations. The average annual macroinvertebrate density, index of diversity, number of taxa, and number of mayfly and stonefly taxa were determined for each station. These measures showed significant differences (p < 0.05) across stream order within and between the two river basins. Total taxa, total mayfly and stonefly taxa, and diversity were highest in orders 4 and 5 with decreased values in lower and higher stream orders. Maximum organism densities occurred in intermediate order streams. These differences were attributed to the succession of physical changes from headwaters to mouth within each river and to the unique geomorphology of each catchment basin.Water quality criteria based on three of the four measures described above (with 95 % confidence limits) were established for each stream order in each river basin. Criteria for the Osage River basin were then used to identify three streams in the basin affected by environmental disturbances (stream impoundment, channelization and sewage discharge). The use of order-and basin-specific criteria assures that the biological differences between streams caused by environmental disturbance can be distinguished from the natural biological differences between streams of different orders and drainages.

Stream order-dependent diversity metrics of epilithic diatom assemblages

“…In mid-order streams, the variation of energy inputs might be the greatest (minimal shading and CPOM, profuse sunlight, and substantial amount of FPOM) consequently it predicts a peak in biological diversity (Allan, 2001). In mayfly and stonefly taxa, diversity values were the highest in 4th to 5th order streams and declined both at lower and higher stream orders due to the physical changes from the source to the mouth and to the geomorphology of the catchment basins (Crunkilton & Duchrow, 1991). The humpshaped productivity-diversity relationship was supposed to be universal by Huston (1999) since at higher nutrient levels anoxia may delimit diversity.…”

“…Stream order may separate streams into different segments with similar internal characteristics (Seyfer & Wilhm, 1977). Several studies were published where stream order was used to classify and explain diversity and composition of lotic-[like macroinvertebrates (e.g., Pringle, 1985), phytoplankton (e.g., Garnier et al, 1995), fish (e.g., McCormick et al, 2000)] and riparian organisms (e.g., Dunn et al, 2011), and even the water quality (Crunkilton & Duchrow, 1991). Stream order has been successfully applied in freshwater biodiversity planning (Higgins et al, 2005).…”

Detecting trend on ecological river status – how to deal with short incomplete bioindicator time series? Methodological and operational issues

“…A Chi test was carried out (using a permutation procedure to consider small sample size) to study the effect of (i) the size of the river at the station, based on the Strahler order and (ii) the environmental context defined by the hydroecoregion. Indeed, Strahler river order is one of the most important factors influencing the structure and the function of river (Crunkilton and Duchrow, 1991;Hughes et al, 2011). Moreover, rivers located in the same hydroecoregion share the same natural background defined by geological, climate and relief parameters.…”

“…For small and incomplete data sets, three statistical tests are particularly well-suited and commonly used: a parametric test -the linear regression (LR) -and two non-parametric tests -the Mann-Kendall (MK) and Spearman rho (SR) tests (Hirsch et al, 1991;Diamantini et al, 2018). In this study, the outputs of these three tests were analysed and compared simultaneously.…”

“…Detecting the effectiveness of national policies or actions taken by local authorities is then a major challenge for policy-makers and water managers (Lalande et al, 2014;Diamantini et al, 2018). Therefore, there is a great need for tools to quantify the evolution of the ecological river status over time what we call here: trend.…”