UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring & Assessment

under the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Helsinki, 1992)

Working programme 1994/1995

Volume 3:

Biological Assessment
Methods for Watercourses
Metode Penilaian Biologis untuk Tempat Tinggal

RIZA report nr.: 95.066

ISBN 9036945763

Authors:
R.A.E. Knoben (Witteveen + Bos),
C. Roos (Witteveen + Bos),
M.C.M van Oirschot (RIZA)

Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water

Management RIZA Institute for Inland Water
Management and Waste Water Treatment

Witteveen + Bos Consulting engineers,

Deventer, the Netherlands
(Commissioned by RIZA)

Lelystad, October 1995

Colofon

lay-out:
RIZA Design

Cover design:
Ph. Hogeboom (Bureau Beekvisser bNO)
J.J. Ottens (RIZA)

Cover pictures:
RIZA
Pictures reflect main functions of rivers

Printed by:
Koninklijke Vermande BV

English corrections:
M.T. Villars (Delft Hydraulics)

Reproduction permitted only when quoting is evident.

Additional copies of the following 5 volumes can be ordered from RIZA, Institute for Inland Water
Manage-ment and Waste Water Treatment, ECE Task Force project-secretariat, P.O. box 17, 8200 AA
Lelystad, The Netherlands. Fax: +31 (0)320 249218

- Volume 1: Transboundary rivers and international lakes (ISBN 9036945569)

- Volume 2: Current practices in monitoring and assessment of rivers and lakes (ISBN 9036945666)
- Volume 3: Biological assessment methods for watercourses (ISBN 9036945763)
- Volume 4: Quality assurance (ISBN 9036945860)
- Volume 5: State of the art on monitoring and assessment of rivers (ISBN 9036945968)

NOTE:
The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the
expres-sion of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the
legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its
frontiers or boundaries.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 2
Preface

..................................................................................

This report has been prepared by R.A.E. Knoben and C. Roos (Witteveen +
Bos Consulting Engineers, The Netherlands), in close cooperation with
M.C.M. van Oirschot (RIZA, The Netherlands). The guidance-committee on
this report comprised of M. Adriaanse, E.C.L. Marteijn, P.J.M. Latour and J.G.
Timmerman (RIZA, The Netherlands). The report has been re-viewed by the
international experts: G.A. Friedrich (LWA, Germany),
P. Logan (NRA, United Kingdom), E. Nusch (Ruhrverband, Germany),
N. de Pauw (University of Gent, Belgium) and H. Soszka (Poland).

The report was discussed and accepted by the ECE Task Force on
Monitor-ing and Assessment under the Convention on the Protection and
Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Helsinki,
1992). Designated experts for the Task Force were:
Austria K. Schwaiger
Bulgaria N. Matev
^ ^
Czech Republic J. Plainer, P. Puncochár
Croatia B. Glumbic,´ M. Marijanovic´
Estonia V. Taal, K. Türk
Finland S. Antikainen
Germany F. Kohmann, M. Schleuter
Greece P. Karakatsoulis
Hungary Zs. Buzás, E. Poroszlai
Latvia R. Bebris
The Netherlands A.B. van Luin, M. Adriaanse, J.G. Timmerman
Poland M. Landsberg-Ucziwek, H. Soszka
Portugal V.M. da Silva
Romania T.L. Constantinescu, C. Ognean
Russian Federation V.S. Kukosh
Slovak Republic Z. Kelnarová, M. Matuska
Slovenia M. Zupan
Spain J.L. Ortiz-Casas
Ukraine O. Kryjanovskaia, N. Padun, O. Tarasova
United Kingdom J. Seager
UN/ECE R. Enderlein
WMO J. Bassier, N. Sehmi

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 3
UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment
Biological Assessment 4
Contents

..................................................................................

Preface 3

1. Introduction
7 1.1 General 7
1.2 Study objectives 8
1.3 Scope and restrictions 9

2. Watercourses in ecological perspective 11

2.1 Watercourses as part of riverine ecosystems 11
2.2 Classification of rivers 14
2.3 Historical development from physical-chemical to ecological assessment 15
2.4 Towards an integrated approach 17
2.5 Assessment objectives in an integrated approach 17

3. Review of biological assessment

methods 19 3.1 General 19
3.2 Considerations on commonly applied biotic groups in biologica
assess-ment 20
3.3 Diversity indices 23
3.4 Biotic indices and biotic scores 25
3.5 Saprobic systems 28
3.6 Habitat quality assessment 31
3.7 Rapid Bioassessment Protocols 33
3.8 Ecosystem approach in integrated water management 35
3.9 Methods concerning ecosystem functioning 37
3.10 Assessment of toxicity, bioaccumulation and mutagenicity 39
3.10.1 In stream observations on communities 40
3.10.2 In stream bioassays 40
3.10.3 Laboratory toxicity testing 41
3.10.4 Bioaccumulation monitoring 41
3.10.5 Integrated toxicity assessment 42
3.10.6 Mutagenicity 42
3.11 Microbiological assessment of hygienic status 43
3.12 Summarizing overview 43

4. Current practices 47
4.1 General 47
4.2 Biological assessment practices in ECE-countries 47
4.3 Biological structure 51
4.4 Functional and microbiological parameters 53
4.5 Toxicity, mutagenicity and bioaccumulation 55

5 Recommendations for harmonisation 57

Literature cited 61

Monographs/Proceedings 71

List of iso-standards concerning biological monitoring and assessment 73

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 5
.......................................................................................
Annex
1 UN/ECE-countries and involvement with Helsinki-Convention (1992) 76
2 Diversity indices and comparative indices 77
3 Belgian Biotic Index 79
4 RIVPACS (River InVertebrate Prediction and Classification System) 81
5 Ecological assessment for running waters in Germany 83
6 Ecological assessment method for Dutch running
waters (STOWA-method) 85

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Biological Assessment 6
1. Introduction

..................................................................................

1.1 General

The Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses

and International Lakes (hereinafter referred to as the Convention) was drawn
up under the auspices the Economic Commission for Europe and adopted at
Helsinki on 17 March 1992. The Convention was signed by 25 countries and
by the European Community before the period of signature closed on 18
September 1992. It will enter into force 90 days after the date of deposit of the
sixteenth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. By the
time of writing of this report, thirteen countries and the European Community
had deposited their relevant instruments of ratifi-cation with the United
Nations Secretary-General.

To comply with the obligations under the Helsinki Convention, the Parties will,
inter alia, have to set emission limits for discharges of hazardous sub-stances
from point sources based on the best available technology. In addi-tion, they
will have to apply at least biological treatment or equivalent pro-cesses to
municipal waste water. They shall also issue authorizations for the discharge
of waste water and monitor compliance. Moreover, they have to adopt water
quality criteria and define water quality objectives. To reduce the input of
nutrients and hazardous substances from diffuse sources, in particular from
agriculture, they shall develop and implement best environ-mental practices.
Furthermore, environmental impact assessment proce-dures and the
ecosystem approach shall be used to prevent any adverse impact on
transboundary waters.

Consequently, the Helsinki Convention addresses such issues as

monitoring, assessment, warning and alarm systems, and exchange and
presentation of information. For example, the Parties bordering the same
transboundary waters will have to set up joint or coordinated systems for
monitoring and assessment of the conditions of transboundary waters,
and set up coordi-nated or joint communication, warning and alarm
systems. The clear objec-tive of monitoring and assessment systems
such as the Helsinki Convention is to prove that changes in the conditions
of transboundary waters caused by human activity do not lead to
significant adverse effects on flora and fauna, human health and safety,
soil, air climate, landscape and historic monuments or other physical
structures or the interaction among these fac-tors.

The establishment of a system to furnish proof that these objectives are met is
a challenging task. Moreover, monitoring compliance with the provi-sions of
the Helsinki Convention demands reliable information on waters and factors
influencing water quality and quantity. There is, for instance, a need for
information related to in-stream quality, such as conditions of wa-ters (water
quantity and quality), aquatic and riparian flora and fauna, and sediment.
Information related to extreme conditions in waters, caused by accidents,
floods, drought or ice cover, is also needed. Emission sources al-so have to
be monitored to obtain information on the concentration of pol-lutants in
effluents, and to carry out pollution-load assessments.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 7
 Consequently, information on monitoring of surface waters and significant
emission sources in catchment areas of transboundary waters is required.
This includes information on the legal basis of emission monitoring, selec-tion
of variables, selection of sampling sites and frequencies and documen-tation
and reporting of the results (both to authorities and to the public at large).
Information on monitoring for early warning purposes, including bi-ological
warning systems, is required as well.

Following the adoption of the Convention, the Senior Advisers to ECE

Governments on Environmental and Water Problems (now known as the ECE
Committee on Environmental Policy) entrusted its Working Party on Water
Problems with the implementation of the Convention, pending its entry into
force. To implement the work plan, the Working Party has set up several task
forces and groups of rapporteurs. The topics addressed are:

1. point sources;
2. diffuse sources;
3. legal and administrative aspects;
4. sustainable water management;
5. monitoring and assessment.

The present report has been prepared within the context of the Task
Force on monitoring and assessment, which was led by the Netherlands.

This Task Force has been charged with the preparation of draft guidelines
to ECE Governments on monitoring and assessment. During the first
meet-ing of the Task Force, a phased approach towards this goal has
been ap-proved. During the first phase, the focus will be on ‘running-
water’ trans-boundary water courses (i.e. rivers, streams, canals), while
in later phases, the focus will be on lakes, estuaries and groundwaters.

The present report is one in a series of 5 background documents to be

used for the drafting of guidelines on monitoring and assessment of
running-water transboundary water courses. These reports deal with the
following themes:

1. inventory of transboundary rivers and international lakes in Europe;

2. inventory of current monitoring and assessment practices in
UN/ECE countries;
3. preparation of draft guidelines for biological assessment of rivers;
4. preparation of draft guidelines for quality assurance;
5. inventory of State of the Art practices in monitoring and assessment.

The present report is the result of the activities under item number 3:
Biolo-gical Assessment of Rivers.

1.2 Study objectives

The objectives for this desk-study are:

- preparation of a literature review on the international state-of-the-art
biological assessment and presentation methods;
- evaluation of routine biological monitoring and assessment methods in
UN/ECE countries and comparison of these current practices with
state-of-the-art;
- formulation of recommendations for short-term and long-term harmon-
isation efforts.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 8
 In order to meet the second objective RIZA has performed an enquiry
amongst ECE-countries (especially those represented in the Task Force)
by means of a questionnaire. The questionnaire contains a number of
ques-tions about biological monitoring activities. Chapter 4 will discuss
the re-ported results.

1.3 Scope and restrictions

Biological assessment can be defined as the systematic use of biological re-

sponses to evaluate changes in the environment with the intent to use this
information in a quality control program (Matthews et al., 1982). This defi-
nition is often used in a restricted sense in which biological assessment re-
fers to field studies on plankton, macroinvertebrate or fish community in a
river to evaluate biological water quality. In this sense, biological assess-ment
is a form of ecosystem monitoring (De Zwart, 1994).

In this report, however, the area of study has been extended from biologi-
cal assessment in this restricted sense to assessment methods that take
more aspects of the riverine ecosystem into consideration, such as
habitat quality assessment and ecological assessment. Furthermore,
assessment methods that use bioindicators of other biotic groups or apply
an experi-mental setup with organisms, like toxicological methods, are
considered in this report as biological assessment methods. Also attention
will be given to the future perspective of integrated assessment (De
Zwart, 1994). Biologi-cal early warning systems (bio-alarm) for discharges
of river quality control are however not included.

The study has been limited to assessment methods for watercourses or

run-ning waters such as rivers, streams and canals. Methods for standing
water bodies, like lakes and reservoirs, have been excluded. A less
profound re-striction has been applied to the geographical distribution of
the application or occurrence of biological assessment methods. Most
emphasis has been put on the European continent and more specific the
Helsinki countries , but some important methods from other countries are
incorporated in the literature review as well.

At the start of this study, it was clear that the number of existing methods
was overwhelming. For this reason it was decided to present and
discuss categories of methods, illustrated with some examples.

The recommendations presented in chapter 5 of this draft report are only

preliminary and result purely from the desk study. It is felt that the step
from these preliminary recommendations to transboundary guidelines
needs further discussion with participating countries. These discussions
should preferably include "technical" as well as legal, political and organ-
izational aspects. It would be very helpful in discussing these matters to
recognize both short-term and long-term goals for harmonization. Long-
term objectives could be used to coordinate future developments, while
the more practical short-term goals facilitate the exchange of relevant
data of the watercourses between countries.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 9
UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment
Biological Assessment 10
2. Watercourses in ecological perspective

..................................................................................

2.1 Watercourses as part of riverine ecosystems

A watercourse or river is an open system with a strong directionality and

strong interactions with its drainage basin. Four dimensions in
environmen-tal relationships between river and surrounding landscape
can be distin-guished: longitudinal, lateral and vertical gradients and a
temporal dimen-sion (figure 2.1; from Ward & Stanford, 1989).

Distinct longitudinal gradients from headwaters to downstream estuary

are a result of dynamics in hydrology and morphology, together with
spatial differences in geology, relief and soil in the catchment area.
Typical exam-ples are (in downstream direction) increasing river bed
width and depth, decreasing stream velocity, decreasing substrate grain
size and increasing enrichment by nutrients. This longitudinal gradients in
abiotic determining factors result in an ecological zonation of
communities, both functional and structural, from origin to river mouth, as
illustrated in the River Continuum Concept (Vannote et al., 1980).

The transverse or lateral gradient in natural streams and rivers can be ap-
pointed in the way the aquatic zone (water body) of a riverine ecosystem
is interlinked with the riparian zone (banks, amphibious zone) and the
terres-trial zone (floodplains). Abiotic determining factors like erosion and
sedi-mentation patterns and stream velocity differ greatly between
streambed, banks and floodplains, inner and outer curves etc.

A third gradient or dimension is the vertical relationship between the river

sediment and underlying groundwater system. Finally, a temporal dimen-sion
can be considered in the duration of certain natural events like floods and
other changes in water level. Moreover, there is a temporal dimension in the
time scale of man induced impacts, for example in the way dams prevent
migratory fish movements and regulation prevents natural varia-tions in
water level (Ward & Stanford, 1989).

................................
Figure 2.1 -
riverineheadwater
Major interactive spatial pathways of
reverine ecosystems [from Ward &
Stanford, 1989].

riverine- riverine-
floodplain riparian

-
riverineestuarine

riverinegroundwater

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 11
 These gradients lead (potentially) to a large variation of habitats in and
along natural rivers which in turn result in a large differences in species
composition of communities. Several manuals on the ecology of natural
riv-ers as well as impacted streams already date from the seventies
(Hynes, 1970; Ward & Stanford, 1979). At that time major emphasis was
put on the communities of the aquatic zone or water body only, including
their interrelations with abiotic determining factors like current velocity,
substrate and chemical water composition.

................................
Figuur 2.2
Ecological relations at landscape level of
a river in its environment in three re-
aches: upper, middle and lower part.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 12
 The multiple relationships between both environmental conditions and
bio-logical relations in benthic communities within watercourses account
for a complex scheme, for example illustrated by Braukmann for small
running waters or brooks (figure 2.2; modified from Braukmann, 1987 and
De Pauw & Hawkes, 1993).

................................
Figure 2.3
Determining factors in occurrence of ecological factors
benthic organisme in running waters
[translated from Braukman, 1987; up-
dated with De Pauw & Hawkes, 1993]. physiographical factors biocoenotic factors
Black= abiotic factors; green = biologi-
cal factors; dashed red = factors
geological factors geographical factors food predator- reproduction
which are in use for water quality prey
criteria; sol-id purple = unnatural or relations
anthropogenic determinants. chemical water climate geographical position
composition irradation altitude
temperature
precipitation
slope canalisation
vegetation
sediment
nutrient current substrate,
status velocity morphology
oxygen

spatial sizeof biotope

occurence of
Ph stream organisms topographicalarea of distribution

distribution history
toxicants

An impression of the predominant relations on a landscape ecology

scale between a river and its natural environment is given in figure 2.3
for three reaches of the river. In the upper reach interrelations concern
mainly dis-charge and erosion. In the lower reach, the river can have a
major impact on the terrestrial zone, by processes like deposition of
suspended solids, supply of foreign species, etc. as a result of floods.

Although the aquatic zone has received most attention last decades, at-
tempts to classify the other riverine ecosystem zones have been described.
Rademakers & Wolfert (1994) distinguished 18 coherent types of habitats -
called ‘ecotopes’ - varying from floodplain forests and meadows to reed
marshes and side-channels. This approach can be useful in ecological reha-
bilitation of floodplains (IRC, 1992). Of course not all ecotopes will neces-
sarily be present in a specific river; the study demonstrates the variety that
can exist under natural circumstances. The habitat variation however forms
the conditional matrix for the species diversity and the complexity of the
foodweb. Also, habitat diversity determines many natural values like key
species/taxa in nature conservation (e.g. plants, amphibians, water birds and
mammals). As an example, flowing side-channels along rivers and as-
sociated floodplain woodlands highly increase the species diversity (e.g.
Barneveld et al., 1993).

In addition to hydromorphological dynamics, other factors determine the

actual development of the riverine ecosystem. Due to river pollution, land
use dynamics and morphological adjustments like canalization or weirs,
im-pairment of natural ecosystem development occurs. Many disturbing

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 13
 effects are known at the species level as well as at whole community
level due to (flow) regulation, acidification, eutrophication, and toxic
discharges (e.g. Griffith, 1992).

The actual aquatic community can thus be considered as the integrated bi-otic
response to all existing abiotic and biotic forces. This holistic view on riverine
ecosystems has to be made measurable in order to be of practical use in
ecological water management. Therefore a number of representative and
sensitive parameters have to be selected to monitor and assess the wa-
tercourse. Sufficient knowledge of river ecosystem functioning is a prereq-
uisite to the correct selection of representative and sensitive parameters. The
use of multivariate statistics is necessary to find which environmental
variables account for most variation in the original data.

2.2 Classification of rivers

Assessment of river quality implies the activity of measuring biological or

ecological status on a certain (linear or non-linear) scale, which preferably
is furnished with clear endpoints. At one side of the yardstick, at the low
lev-els of quality, the assessment endpoint appears to be well defined:
“dead water”. The other end however, can be considered the status of a
part of the river ecosystem under natural conditions or reference state and
is far more difficult to define. Classification could help to define natural
variety in rivers.

At this point, two major ecological concepts need to be mentioned: the clas-
sical concept in which a river is divided into particular zones, and the concept
of a water course as a continuum of communities. As a result of the former
concept, a classification scheme was proposed on a worldwide scale in 1963
(Illies & Botosaneanu, 1963). Another proposal to establish a macrohabitat
based classification on the scale of the European community was presented
by Persoone (1979). He distinguished 432 macrohabitats. The River Continu-
um Concept was introduced in 1980 and regards a river as a continuum of
communities that differ both in structure and in function (Vannote et al., 1980).
The applicability of this concept to (very) large rivers as well as small rivers is
however argued (Sedell et al., 1989; Verdonschot, 1990).

Verdonschot (1990) has reviewed and discussed the advantages and disad-
vantages of both concepts. He reaches the general conclusion that classifi-
cation and continuum are not contrary, but rather supplementary concepts.
Consensus on this issue can be reached by combining the pragmatic part of
classification and the recognition of abstract conceptions with the realism of
the multidimensional model of the continuum approach.

At a regional or national level several typological classifications for running waters

have been made (e.g. Verdonschot, 1990; Friedrich, 1993; Wright et al., 1993). At
present however, no biotypological classification of rivers exists that can provide
reference sites and aquatic communities at the scale of the European countries.
Furthermore, one has to realise that assessment of whole riverine ecosystems
following an ecosystem approach will require a more ex-tensive set of reference
data which has to be extended to communities of banks, floodplains etcetera. The
availability of an European database of refer-ence sites would be of great interest
to integrated river management. An at-tempt in defining ‘ecotopes’ for the
terrestrial and amphibious zones of river Rhine have been made by Rademakers &
Wolfert (1994). This approach needs to be integrated with aquatic community
classifications.

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Biological Assessment 14
 2.3 Historical development from physical-chemical to ecological assessment

The assessment of water quality for water management purposes has

until now been based on physical, chemical or biological data, or a
combination of these. Although the physical-chemical monitoring methods
of inland waters are probably the oldest, biological monitoring has a
tradition of al-most a century or even longer, given the first documented
observation that polluted waters contained other faunal species than
clean waters (Kolenati, 1848).

Chemical water quality assessment however received the most attention

of policy makers and was implemented at a much earlier stage in
legislation and standards (water quality objectives) than biological
assessment. Some important factors may have been:
- the direct relation with emissions of polluting substances;
- the relative ease to perform and standardise sampling and
measure-ments of ‘common’ chemicals in river water;
- the straight-forward manner in which water management objectives and
quality standards can be expressed in terms of threshold concentrations;
- the manner in which deterioration of water quality of watercourses due
to pollution and the subsequent loss of drinking water supply or other
functional uses addresses the public interest more directly than loss of
biological quality.

Chemical assessment does not provide direct information on the effects

of pollution on the biological quality or ecosystem health of the river. To
ob-tain a more complete picture of water quality, the assessment can be
ex-tended to biological assessment. A number of important specific
features of biological assessment can be mentioned (Metcalfe, 1989):
- biotic communities integrate environmental conditions over a long peri-od
of time and require low-frequency sampling whereas chemical analy-sis
offer snapshots of single moments, requiring a high frequency;
- the actual number of substances present in surface waters exceeds the
number of measured substances by orders of magnitude (Van Leeuwen,
1995). For many (toxic) substances no analysis methodology is available
or environmental concentrations are below detection levels;
- water quality objectives and uses that are related to aesthetic, recrea-tional
and ecological dimensions can only be expressed in terms of bio-logical or
ecological features and be assessed by biological methods only.

Chemical and biological assessment of water quality can serve different

purposes and can consequently be considered complementary rather
than mutually exclusive.

The classic saprobic system based on the presence of species developed by

Kolkwitz & Marsson and later extended by Liebmann (1962), has provided a
scientific and practical method for classifying the impact of organic pollu-tion
of running waters by combining chemical and biological aspects (Kolk-witz &
Marsson, 1902,1908,1909). The application of the saprobic system has been
increased strongly by the possibility of quantifying the results with the aid of
the saprobic index S or a modified index including saprobic valencies (Pantle
& Buck, 1955; Zelinka and Marvan, 1961). Sládecek of-fered a
comprehensive summary and revision of the development of water quality
assessment methods from the biological point of view (Sládecek, 1973). After
his publication of an extensive list of water organisms as indi-cators of
saprobity, the saprobic system was and is up till now applied in many
European countries (see 3.5 and 4.4).

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Biological Assessment 15
 The assessment of biological water quality by means of macroinvertebrates
originates from the United States (Richardson, 1928). In Europe, the first
development in the use of benthic communities for water quality assess-
ment, apart from the saprobic system, arose in the United Kingdom and was
first presented in the Trent Biotic Index (Woodiwiss, 1964).

Since the late seventies, three rounds of international testing and evalua-
tion of the major biotic indices have been performed in (West-)Germany,
the United Kingdom and Italy, initiated and encouraged by the EEC
(Tittitzer, 1976; Woodiwiss, 1978; Chesters, 1980; Ghetti & Bonazzi,
1980). A comprehensive description of the historical development and
evaluation of biotic, saprobic and diversity index methods based on
macroinverte-brates is presented by Metcalfe (1989) (see 3.2 and 3.3). A
recent over-view of applications in the countries of the European
community is given by De Pauw & Hawkes (1993). Figure 2.4 summarizes
the essentials of both chronological overviews (modified from Metcalfe
(1989) and De Pauw et al. (1992) (after Woodiwiss,1980).

......................................................
Figure 2.4
Chronological development and geographical distribution of bio-
logical assessment in some European countries [modified from
Metcalfe, 1989 & De Pauw et al., 1992 (after Woodiwiss, 1980)].

CZECHOSL. GERMANY NETHERLANDS BELGIUM FRANCE UNITED KINGDOM

Indice Biotique Global
1985
Belgian Biotic Index
De Pauw & Vanhoren, 1983
Indice Biologique de
Quality Generale
1980 1982
K-Value Modified BMWP
Gardeniers & Tolkamp, 1978 1979

SAPROBIEN SYSTEM BMWP SCORE

LAWA, 1976 1978
Sladecek, 1973
Moller Pilot, 1976
BIOTIC SCORE
1970 Chandler, 1970

Indice Biotique
Vermeaux & Tuffery, 1967
SPECIE DEFICIT
Kothe, 1962 TRENT BIOTIC INDEX
Woodiwiss, 1964
Zellinks & Marvann, 1961
1960

B.E.O.L.
SAPROBITY INDEX Knopp, 1954
Pantle & Buck, 1953

DEGREE OF POLLUTION
1950 Liebmann, 1951

SAPROBIEN SYSTEM
Kolkwitz & Marsson, 1902/8/9
1900

During the seventies, the focus of water quality problems shifted from or-ganic
load to eutrophication and toxic effects of polluting substances. Re-cently the
interest changed again to the quality of the aquatic ecosystem as a whole,
including both the water zone or water body itself and the inter-linked system
of the aquatic (including water bottom or sediment), riparian and terrestrial
zones and the animal and plant communities present there.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 16
 This ecosystem approach is being pursued because of the insight into
the strong interaction between all relevant abiotic conditions and the
biotic re-sponse of the aquatic community.
For this reason, attempts have been made to develop ecological assessment
methods (Roos et al., 1991; Laane & Lindgaard-Joergensen, 1992;
Friedrich et al., 1993; Klapwijk et al., 1995). This development towards inte-
grated assessment can also be recognised in the United States in the assess-
ment of the ecological integrity, in which both the biological condition and
the habitat quality are evaluated (Plafkin et al., 1989; Barbour et al., 1992).

2.4 Towards an integrated approach

For a long time, management of watercourses was dedicated to human

functional uses and was concerned mainly with hydro-morphological as-
pects. Relevant hydrodynamic processes such as rainfall, discharge
charac-teristics and inundations were carefully studied. Furthermore
morphody-namics were of interest because of the strong relationship of
erosion, sediment transport and sedimentation to hydrodynamics. Flood-
control, shipping and water supply could be managed sufficiently by
monitoring only these variables.

At present, this type of information is insufficient to meet current demands in

water quality and water quantity management. Functional uses like drinking
water production, fisheries, industry and agriculture often co-exist and all
make their respective water quality demands. Developments in aquatic
ecology show that rivers have intrinsic ecological “functions” that need to be
protected, such as species and habitat diversity, foodweb inter-relations and
production and mineralisation of organic matter. These func-tions and uses
are in turn related to hydrology, morphodynamics, water quality, etc. For this
reason, a more integrated type of water management is obviously needed,
addressing the functioning of the aquatic ecosystem as a whole, including its
use. As a working-title, “integrated catchment management” could be used
for this approach. This approach is also pro-moted by the Helsinki convention
(UN/ECE, 1992).

Adopting this approach will have consequences with respect to

monitoring and assessment objectives and activities. Knowledge of
ecosystem perfor-mance under natural conditions will have to be used to
elucidate specific interrelations within the ecosystem, and to define
management targets and (possible) bottle-necks. Targets will have to
include both ecological targets (which can be seen as an intrinsic
functional use) and functional (or use re-lated) targets, related to each
other in a logical and coherent way to avoid conflicting management.

In summary, one can conclude that most traditional biological assessment

methods, like saprobic or biotic indices, no longer provide a sufficient tool
to integrated water management due to their restricted approach to one
or few aspects of the water ecosystem. Chapter 3 of this report will
discuss in further detail some promising new methods as well as the
existing and proven methods.

2.5 Assessment objectives in an integrated approach

State-of-the-art monitoring and assessment of riverine ecosystems should

involve both biotic and abiotic variables, both water quantity and quality

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 17
 aspects, both aquatic and floodplain features, and both structural and
func-tional variables. In many cases, functional uses are incorporated as
well in quality objectives. An example of a state-of-the-art set of variables
is pre-sented in the provisional EU-directive (European Union, 1994) in
which ec-ological quality is determined by the following target variables:
- dissolved oxygen and concentrations of toxic or other harmful
substanc-es in water, sediment and biota;
- levels of disease in animal life, including fish, and in plant
populations due to anthropogenic influence;
- diversity of invertebrate communities (planktonic and bottom-dwelling)
and key species/taxa normally associated with the undisturbed
condition of the ecosystem;
- diversity of aquatic plant communities, including key species/taxa nor-
mally associated with the undisturbed condition of the ecosystem, and
the extent of macrophytic or algal growth due to elevated nutrient levels
of anthropogenic origin;
- the diversity of the fish population and key species/taxa normally
asso-ciated with the undisturbed condition of the ecosystem.
Passage, in so-far as it is influenced by human activity, migratory fish;
- the diversity of the higher vertebrate community (amphibians, birds
and mammals);
- the structure and quality of the sediment and its ability to sustain the bi-
ological community in the ecosystem as well as the riparian and coastal
zones, including the biological community and the aesthetics of the site.

The list clearly demonstrates the integrated approach which is chosen to

assess ecological quality. It must be stated however that for most target
variables standards still have to be developed (nationally). An important
shortcoming of the provisional directive is that it does not support the
catchment approach which is felt to be necessary (see 2.4).

It should be noted that the directive is in a draft stage and still is under
dis-cussion, thus may not come into effect in the referred draft version.

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Biological Assessment 18
3. Review of biological assessment methods

..................................................................................

3.1 General

This chapter presents the results of a desk study on biological assessment

methods for watercourses. Most attention is given to the state-of-the-art of
categories of methods rather than reviewing historical developments of all
existing single methods. Description of historical modifications is limited to
cases were it is relevant to understanding current practices. As is pointed out
in 1.3, biological assessment is handled in its most extended definition, while
in geographical respect major emphasis is put on methods which were
developed throughout Europe.

The ranking of presentation and the subdivision of the methods in this

chapter is a subjective choice which reflects the overall development
from the assessment of a single impact on river water (like saprobic
systems or toxic impact) to combined or integrated impact assessment of
all compart-ments of riverine ecosystems. Within some of the categories,
numerous methods can be distinguished. One or two commonly used
methods in routine monitoring however have been presented per
category in further detail in the annexes. A fuller description of many
methods mentioned can be found in Newman (1988).

Figure 3.1 provides a scheme to describe the process of biological

monitor-ing and assessment in a number of steps. The presented
methods are com-posed of different sets of steps or elements from this
scheme. Only a few described methods apply to a complete monitoring
and assessment meth-od.

................................
Figure 3.1
Elements of biological monitoring sampling/analysis reference state
assessment methods. determining biological status

assessment numerical evaluation scientific

index calculation

classification arbitrary quality classes

judgement on quality level

political
compliance testing standards

subjective
colour coding

graphics/presentation

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 19
 For every group of assessment methods the relevant elements are indicated
in dark blue. The elements or arrows, which are not relevant, are coloured in
light blue. In some cases an element is optional or is not valid for all methods
concerned. This is indicated by dashed elements and arrows.

As can be observed from the illustrations in the following paragraphs, only a

limited number of methods comprise all steps in the process of monitoring
and assessment. Classification quality levels and presentation methods are
available in the saprobic system and biotic indices. Many examples of water
quality classes and colour bandings are available on the European continent.
Both methods are in principle suited to set standards to be tested for compli-
ance, but only a limited number of examples have been found in literature.

Currently, the European committee for standardization (CEN) is

preparing guidelines on presentation of biological water quality data for
running wa-ters, using benthic macroinvertebrates. The CEN has noted a
great similar-ity in presentation methods of coloured maps in different
countries despite of different assessment methods used. CEN proposes
to harmonize the presentation method rather than the assessment
method. There is agree-ment on the following colour coding:
blue expected natural biological quality
green slightly impaired biological quality
yellow moderately impaired quality
red severely impaired biological quality
black no macroinvertebrates present, indicating excessive toxicity.

3.2 Considerations on commonly applied biotic groups in biological

assess-ment

Considering the routine monitoring and assessment programmes presented

in the literature, it can be concluded that the integrated approach in river
quality assessment is a future perspective, whereas the ‘classical’ biological
assessment methods for water bodies are currently used. For this reason,
some theoretical and practical considerations on the use of specific groups in
biological assessment methods are presented below.

Bacteria
Bacterial methods are applied to assess three different aspects of
water quality: hygienic status, mutagenicity and acute toxicity. Microbio-logical
methods in water quality assessment can be considered as a form of
biological assessment because of their usage of organisms. In contrast with
other biological assessment methods, these methods are however not con-
cerned with the species composition or structure of the bacterial commu-nity
of the river water, but with the presence of a few indicative species or genera
only e.g. pathogenic bacteria. Some other types of bacterial meth-ods involve
laboratory tests with well defined strains of a single species, like
Photobacterium phosphoreum in the Microtox-test for acute toxicity (De Zwart
& Slooff, 1983; Ross & Henebry, 1989).

Algae
Algae have a particular value to assess eutrophication effects,
es-pecially in downstream, slowly flowing parts of rivers. Although the
exis-tence of a true phytoplankton community has often been debatable
in riv-ers, there is evidence that a dense and true phytoplankton
community develops in the middle and lower part of a river provided the
residence time is long enough (Tubbing et al., 1994).

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Biological Assessment 20
 In fast running waters and headwaters of rivers, there are hardly any
phy-toplankton present due to the very short retention time. Attached
algae (periphyton) can be used in those cases, but quantitative
sampling of this community is very difficult. The use of artificial
substrates can overcome this problem. The diatom community can be
useful in assessing trophy (Steinberg & Schiefele, 1988). Phytoplankton
(suspend algae) are easy to sample in a quantitative way. Identification
of species and distinction between living and dead organisms is difficult
and can only be performed by trained biologists. Qualitative sampling of
periphytic diatoms can be done by scraping off substrates.

Algae exhibit a strong seasonality or periodicity in occurrence, due to the

short generation time and variation in competitive power in using the avail-
able light. Consequently, sampling frequency should be higher than that
for macroinvertebrate community assessment. Algal communities are best
suit-ed for assessing the impact of changes in the chemical composition
of the water body, rather than physical disturbances.

Macrophytes
Macrophytes are not frequently used in biological assessment of
river water quality despite some important advantages: their fixed position
and the easy identification. Disadvantages are that they show a strong
sea-sonality in occurrence and visibility. Furthermore, their responses to
pollu-tion were not well documented until recently (Hellawell, 1986). In
head-streams of rivers macrophytes may be absent, while in lowland
streams macrophytes may be often removed by maintenance activities in
order to guarantee sufficient discharge.

The above considerations apply to the use in biological assessment of

the water body. In adapting a ecosystem approach in the integrated
catchment assessment, macrophytes will become of greater importance
because of their distribution over all zones of the riverine ecosystem. In
the typology of riverine ecotopes an important role has been assigned to
plants in char-acterising the ecotopes (Rademakers & Wolfert, 1994).
Macrophytes are important in defining habitat structure and flow for other
biotic compo-nents.

Macroinvertebrates
The major advantages of using macroinvertebrates in biological
as-sessment have been summarized by Hellawell (1986), Metcalfe
(1989), De Pauw & Hawkes (1993):
- the community consists of many representatives from a wide range
of faunal orders. It is assumed that such a range of species provides
suffi-cient probability of sensitive species being present;
- spatial and temporal mobility of macroinvertebrates is quite restricted. They
can be considered as inhabitants from habitats under investigation;
- organisms integrate environmental conditions over longs periods
of time.

Some practical considerations that should be kept in mind when

collecting macro-invertebrates concern the seasonality of the presence of
a large por-tion of macroinvertebrate species, namely insects in their
larval stage of the life cycle. Furthermore, macroinvertebrates exhibit a
large variation in spa-tial distribution at a specific location.
As a result quantitative sampling is considered to be impossible in routine
practice. The use of relative abundances is often applied to get around this
problem. Other problems are drift in case of flooding or extreme discharges

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 21
 and migration or colonisation of exotic species (e.g. in the river
Rhine (Van den Brink et al., 1991)).

It has been found that from 100 different existing biological assessment
methods, two thirds are based on macroinvertebrates. Three inter-
calibra-tion exercises of European methods demonstrated that the most
successful assessment methods were those based on the benthic
macroinvertebrate community (De Pauw & Hawkes,1993)(see 3.4).

Fish
Fish communities are less frequently used for biological assessment
than macroinvertebrates. This is due to some behavioral characteristics of
fish. In general fish species are more mobile, e.g. at food collecting, than
species of benthic macroinvertebrate community. Apart from this small scale
mobility, many fish species show seasonal upstream or downstream
migrations for spawning. Fish can show avoidance behaviour to pollution.
Another drawback is the necessity of extensive manpower for sampling, es-
pecially in deep, fast-flowing rivers (Hellawell, 1986).

Nevertheless, some authors evaluate environmental impact on streams

by means of fish community composition and disagree with respect to the
sampling effort needed. Karr mentioned some important advantages of
us-ing fish communities (Karr, 1981):
- fish are good indicators of long-term effects and broad habitat condi-
tions because they are long-lived and mobile;
- fish communities are composed of several trophic levels (omnivores,
her-bivores, planktivores
- the position of fish at the top of the predator-prey chain and human
consumption make them important key taxa;
- fish provide the possibility of using biomarkers;
- fish are relatively easy to collect and identify to species level (Plafkin
et al., 1989).

In general assessment by means of fishes concerns the use of minor

fish species rather than commercial fish or ‘angling’ fish.

In European biological water quality assessment some fish species have

been implemented in the saprobic system of Sládecek (1973) and can
serve as indicators of saprobic load.

Water birds and mammals

As a direct consequence of the classical ‘water body’ approach
of biological assessment of watercourses, virtually no attention has been
paid in the past to the water birds and mammals as part of a riverine
ecosystem. By tradition, water birds and mammals have been the subject
of nature conservation institutions rather than water management
authorities. For breeding birds, monitoring and assessment is focused on
red list or endan-gered species, whereas for non-breeding water birds the
1% criterion of the Ramsar Convention is applied.

The ecosystem approach for water systems in current Dutch water man-
agement, encloses a number of birds as part of the riverine ecosystem,
which is visualised by the AMOEBA presentation method. The present
abundance of specific water-related bird species is related to the abun-
dance in a historical reference state, specified by a certain year. More
atten-tion will be give to this approach in Section 3.8.

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Biological Assessment 22
 Suitability of biotic groups for biological quality assessment
The distinct advantages and disadvantages of biotic groups for
monitoring and assessment of river ecosystems which are pointed out
above can be briefly summarized into an overall suitability for
monitoring purposes for different zones (see table 3.1).

................................
Table 3.1 bacteria algae macro- macrophytes fish birds/
Suitability of biotic groups for assess- invertebrates mammals
ment (separately or in combination) of ............. ....... ..... ........... ........... .... ........
distinct riverine zones. aquatic zone
- = not suitable (water body) ++ -/+ ++ -/+ ++ +
-/+ = suitability doubtful riparian zone
+ = suitable (banks) - - + ++ + ++
+ = well suitable terrestrial zone
(floodplains) - - + ++ - ++

3.3 Diversity indices

Objective
A diversity index aims at evaluating community structure with re-
spect to occurrence of species. Diversity indices relate the number of ob-
served species (richness) to the number of individuals (abundance).
Some diversity indices provide an additional insight by calculating the
uniformity of the distribution (evenness) of the number of individuals over
the coun-ted species. In some cases, diversity is considered to be the
species richness only.

Principle
Diversity is a basic feature of the structure of a community or eco-
system, both terrestrial and aquatic (Odum, 1975). The basic assumption is
that disturbance of the water ecosystem or communities under stress leads to
a reduction in diversity (Hellawell, 1986). Pollution, acting as stressor will
result in a reduction of diversity to an extent depending on the degree of
pollution. The opposite, low diversity as indication for polluted conditions, is
however not necessarily true since low diversity may be caused by other
stressors like physical conditions in headstreams (Hawkes, 1979). For simi-lar
reasons, temporal changes in diversity at one station are more signifi-cant
than spatial changes along the longitudinal axis of the river.

Diversity indices can be applied for most biotic groups present in a river. Some
diversity indices consider only a part of a community, e.g. ratio of Chironomids
and Oligochaetes as part of the macroinvertebrate community (Brinkhurst,
1966). A closely related group of indices that provide informa-tion on
community structure are comparative and similarity indices. These indices
determine to what extent two or more biotic communities resemble each other.
They can be used to evaluate spatial discontinuities in commu-nities caused
by environmental changes or to detect and measure temporal changes
between successive samples.

Scope and limitations

The use of diversity indices in many scientific disciplines may be
considered as having world-wide acceptance and application. On a global
scale, nature conservation strategies (i.e. Rio Convention) have been for-
mulated in terms of biodiversity (in the sense of species richness). In water
quality studies diversity indices often are used in evaluating communities in
a ‘before and after’ situation, for example upstream and downstream
sta-tions of a wide range of disturbances like discharge of toxic
substances (acid mine drainage), nutrient enrichment etcetera.

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Biological Assessment 23
................................
Figure 3.2
Monitoring and assessment elements monitoring sampling/analysis reference state
of diversity indices. determining biological status

assessment numerical evaluation scientific

index calculation

classification arbitrary
judgement on quality level
quality classes

political
compliance testing standards

subjective
colour coding

graphics/presentation

Diversity indices have some favourable features:

- they are easy to use and calculate;
- they are applicable to all kind of watercourses;
- they have geographical limitations;
- they are best used for comparative purposes.

The principal objections to diversity indices from the point of view of

water management and control are:
- they provide information on the biological status without having a clear
‘assessment endpoint’. Diversity of communities in natural or undistur-
bed waters can vary considerably within and in between different water
types. The method cannot serve broad surveys over wide ranges of
wa-tersheds, due to the great natural variation in physical and chemical
con-ditions (Andersen et al., 1984);
- all species have equal weight, despite known differences in tolerance for
pollution, and no information is obtained about the species composition.

Examination of the sensitivity of nine diversity and seven similarity

indices shows that the response of the community level indices is
dependent on the initial structure of the community, and the manner in
which the com-munity is changed (Boyle et al., 1990).
The community level indices may give very misleading biological
interpreta-tions of the data they are intending to summarize. Authors state
that these indices should never be used alone.

In summary, it can be concluded that diversity and comparative indices

are not suitable on their own for routine monitoring of riverine
ecosystems at the scale of (transboundary) catchment basins.

Information requirements
Diversity indices can be established by sampling and species iden-
tification of a chosen biotic group, mostly macroinvertebrates or algae. The
level of identification can vary from species to family level. No specific sam-
pling method or devices are prescribed. It is however essential to use a
standard sample and enumeration when comparing impacted sites with a
reference site. Sampling strategy concerning density of monitoring station

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Biological Assessment 24
 network and sampling frequency is not dependent on a diversity index
as such but is related to the biotic group where it is applied.

Presentation methods
Diversity indices are often presented in a table. Graphical ways of
presentation that are suitable for rivers include graphs with the longitudinal
distance of the sampling sites at the X-axis and diversity at the Y-axis. The
location of impact between stations often is indicated by an arrow. There is no
assessment endpoint or reference level that can be referred to.

Examples
Many diversity and comparative indices have been reported
(Hellawell, 1986; De Pauw et al., 1992) and evaluated with respect to sen-
sitivity (Boyle et al., 1990). Annex 2 provides a selection. A number of these
indices form a part of the metrics in Rapid Bioassessment Protocols that are
in use in the United States of America; see Section 3.7.).

3.4 Biotic indices and biotic scores

Objective
Biotic indices and biotic scores are applied to assess biological wa-
ter quality of running waters, in most cases based on macroinvertebrate
community. Biotic indices and scores can measure various types of environ-
mental stress, organic pollution, acid waters etcetera.
The saprobic index can be considered as a specific form of a biotic
index. Because of its widespread application, the saprobic index will be
covered separately in Section 3.5.

Principle
Biotic score and biotic indices combine features of both the diver-sity
approach (see Section 3.3.) as well as the saprobic approach (see Sec-tion
3.5.). The biotic indices are based on two principles: a) that macroin-
vertebrate groups Plecoptera (stoneflies), Ephemeroptera (mayflies),
Trichoptera (caddisflies), Gammarus, Asellus, red Chironomids and Tubifici-
dae disappear in the order mentioned as pollution increases; b) the number
of taxonomic groups is reduced as organic pollution increases. A biotic in-dex
is a qualitative measure whereas most biotic score includes a measure of
abundance and thus is semi-quantitative.

Scope and limitations

The history of the development of biotic indices using
macroinver-tebrates has extensively been presented and discussed by
Metcalfe (1989) (see figure 2.4). Most biotic indices can be considered
descendants of the Trent Biotic Index (Woodiwiss, 1964).
Many contributors to the International Conference on River Quality held at
Brussels in 1991 presented papers on the use of biotic indices (Newman
et al., 1992). Since the late seventies, three rounds of international testing
and evaluation of the most common used biotic scores and indices have
been performed in West-Germany, United Kingdom and Italy, as an initia-
tive of the EEC (Tittizer, 1976; Woodiwiss, 1978; Ghetti & Bonazzi, 1980).
Apart from the wish to develop standard versions of those assessment
methods that appeared most practical, some problems remained
concern-ing translation of biotic indices into degrees of pollution,
combined with other environmental data like stream velocity, nature of
river bottom and climate as well as the need for a biotypological
classification of reference biocoenoses.

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Biological Assessment 25
................................
Figure 3.3
Monitoring and assessment elements monitoring sampling/analysis reference state
of biotic indices. determining biological status

assessment numerical evaluation scientific

index calculation

classification arbitrary
quality classes
judgement on quality level

political
compliance testing standards

subjective
colour coding

graphics/presentation

Most modifications of the original Trent Biotic Index concerned alterations

in the groups that determine systematic units. In Denmark however a
more principal modification of the Trent Biotic Index was proposed by
incorporat-ing two new principles: first, the assignment of negative
indicative value to some taxa present and second, the consideration of the
number of taxo-nomic groups as the difference of negative groups and
positive groups (Andersen et al., 1984). Thus the utility of the basic
principles, increasing pollution results in decreasing number of taxonomic
groups, is enhanced. Authors assume that the modified index is applicable
to the whole North European lowland.

Some authors state that biotic indices are of an objective type, presenting
methods for fixed calculations for any given community, whereas subjective
types of (like saprobic) indices depend on the researchers personal interpre-
tation of the fauna in the watercourse present (Andersen et al., 1984). In-dex
values assessed by different persons would be comparable. Hawkes (1979)
stated however, that diversity indices are more objective than biotic indices. In
biotic indices indicator values are subjectively chosen as in the saprobic
system. The biotic index implies more knowledge than actually exists:
pollution tolerances are subjective and based on ecological observa-tions and
rarely confirmed by experimental studies (Slooff, 1983).

An important advantage of the use of biotic indices is the requirement of

qualitative sampling only and identification is mostly at family or genus
lev-el, without the need to count abundances per species. Uncertainties in
the biotic index only occur due to random variation in samples taken
under the same conditions and variation in applied sampling techniques.

A major obstacle in incorporating biotic indices or scores into water man-

agement policies and standards is to determine representative reference
communities to which investigated stations can be compared. As a result of
biogeographical distributions of species and biotypological differences
between streams, an optimal biological assessment can only be achieved
through regional adaptations (Tolkamp, 1984, 1985). This awareness can be
observed in the large number of modifications and variations in biotic scores
and indices that have been developed (see figure 3.4). It should be

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 26
 noted however that these adaptations reflect political regions rather
than ecological regions. The availability of a European database on
reference states based on ecoregions could overcome the problem of
relying on re-gional adaptations.

Information requirements
Virtually all biotic indices and biotic scores are based on benthic
macroinvertebrates. Sampling of this biotic group is considered to be pos-
sible only in a qualitative or semi-quantitative manner because of the
varia-tion in distribution over habitats present. In addition, it is not possible
to use one standardised sampling method to cover the full range of
upstream headwaters to large and deep rivers in the downstream part of
the catch-ment basin. The applied sampling frequency for biotic indices is
directly re-lated to the observed biotic group, the macroinvertebrates.
Frequencies range from one to three per year.
Biotic score systems demand more effort and are less practical to use
be-cause of the use of abundance, but they may provide more
information (Metcalfe, 1989).

................................
Figure 3.4 Biotic indices Com. References
........................... ..... .....................................
Biotic indices and biotic scores
[Refe-rences cited from De Pauw et Average Score Per Taxon (ASPT) M Armitage et al., 1983
al., 1992].. Belgian Biotic Index (BBI) M De Pauw & Vanhooren, 1983; NBN T92-402
Com. = Communities Biol. Index of Pollut. (BIP) M Graham, 1965
A = periphyton Biotic Index (IB) M Tuffery & Verneaux, 1968
D= Diatoms Biotic Index (IB) M Tuffery & Davaine, 1970
F= fish Biotic Index (BI) M Chutter, 1971
M= macroinvertebrates Biotic Index (BI) M Hawmiller & Scott, 1977
P= plankton Biotic Index (BI) M Winget & Mangun, 1977
V= aquatic vegetation Biotic Index (BI) M Hilsenhoff, 1982
Biotic Index for Duero Basin M Gonzalez del Tanago & Garcia Jalon, 1984
Biotic Index modif. Rio Segre M Palau & Palomes, 1985
Biotic Score (BS) M Chandler, 1970
Biotic Score modif. La Mancha M Gonzalez del Tanago et al., 1979
Biotic Score modif. Rio Jarama M Gonzalez del Tanago & Garcia Jalon, 1980
BMWP-Score (BMWP) M Chesters, 1980; Armitage et al., 1983
BMWP Spanish modif. (BMWP') M Alba-Tercedor & Sanchez-Ortega, 1988
Cemagref Diatom Index (IDC) PAD Cemagref, 1984
Chironomid Index (Ch.I.) M Bazerque et al., 1989
Ch.I. based on pupal exuviae M Wilson & McGill, 1977
Damage Rating V Haslam & Wolseley, 1981
Departm. of Environm. Class. MF DOE UK, 1970
Diatom Index (IDD) AD Descy, 1979
Diatom Index (ILB) AD Lange-Bertelot, 1979
Diatom Index (IPS) AD Cemagref, 1982-1984
Diatom Index (IFL) AD Fabri & Leclerq, 1984-1986
Diatom Index (ILM) AD Leclerq & Maquet, 1987
Diatom Index (CEC) AD Descy & Coste, 1991
Extended Biotic Index (EBI) M Woodiwiss, 1978
EBI Italian modif (EBI) M Ghetti, 1986
EBI Spanisch modif (BILL) M Prat et al., 1983; 1986
Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) F Karr et al., 1986
Family Biotic Index (FBI) M Hilsenhoff, 1987; 1988
Generic Diatom Index (IDG) AD Rumeaux & Coste, 1988
Global Biotic Index (IBG) M Verneaux et al., 1984; AFNOR T 90-350
Glob. Biot. Qual. Index (IQBG) M Verneaux et al., 1976
Ichthygological Index F Badino et al., 1991
Lincoln Quality Index (LQI) M Extance et al., 1987
Macroindex M Perret, 1977
Median Diatomic Index (MI) AD Bazerque et al., 1989
Pollution index (I) M Beck, 1955
Quality Index (K135, K12345) M Tolkamp & Gardeniers, 1977
Quality Rating System (Q-value) M Flanagan & Toner, 1972
Simplified Biotec Index (SBI) MF Jordana et al., 1989
Trent Biotec Index (TBI) M Woodiwiss, 1964

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Biological Assessment 27
 Presentation methods
Calculation of biotic indices and biotic scores result in a number on
a certain scale (for example 1-10). In countries that apply an index for
na-tionwide routine monitoring, the value of the index is classified into
water quality classes ranging from very poor to very good.
This classification provides the possibility of colour coding of stations or
riv-er stretches on geographical maps (e.g. Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij,
1994; Verdievel, 1995).

Examples
De Pauw et al. (1992) provide an overview of the biological as-
sessment methods in countries of the European Community. In the majority of
cases, these methods are some type of biotic score or index. In almost every
country of Western Europe some efforts have been made to test the use of an
existing method or a modification of one method or another. This concerns
both research purposes and routine monitoring purposes.

As an example of the use of a biotic index in a national routine monitoring

and assessment programm, the Belgian Biotic Index will be discussed in
de-tail in annex 3 (Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij, 1994).

In annex 4, the recently developed River Invertebrate Predictions and

Clas-sification System (RIVPACS) for the United Kingdom will be
discussed. This method uses a concept in which the natural or reference
state is predicted for a specific site, deducted from the present value of
natural abiotic fac-tors. The macroinvertebrate community which is
actually present is com-pared with the predicted community. Although this
method seems to have elements of an ecological assessment method
because abiotic factors are involved, it provides no judgement or quality
assessment of these factors. Nevertheless, RIVPACS overcomes a
disadvantage of biotic scores in gener-al, namely the sensitivity for natural
regional differences (Seager et al., 1992).

3.5 Saprobic systems

The saprobic index in the saprobic system could be considered a

specific form of a biotic index, but is also often treated as a separate
group (Metcalfe, 1989; De Pauw & Hawkes, 1993). Because of some
distinct dif-ferences and the wide spread application the saprobic index
will be covered here separately.

Objective
A saprobic system aims to provide a water quality classification
from pure to polluted by means of a system of aquatic organisms
indicating by their presence and vital activity the different levels of water
quality (Sládecek, 1973).

Principle
The saprobic systems are based upon the observation that species
composition as well as species numbers are different over a gradient of self
purification after organic inputs, ranging from completed oxidation to pre-
dominance of reduction processes. As a result, a zonation in the aquatic
communities can be distinguished reflecting the degree of saprobity. Every
species has a specific dependency of decomposing organic substances and
thus the oxygen content. This (known) tolerance is expressed in a saprobic
indicator value, which is assigned to a large number of autotrophic and
heterotrophic floral and faunal species.

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................................
Figure 3.5
Monitoring and assessment elements monitoring sampling/analysis reference state
of saprobic system. determining biological status

assessment numerical evaluation scientific

index calculation

classification arbitrary quality classes

judgement on quality level

political
compliance testing standards

subjective
colour coding

graphics/presentation

The saprobity or saprobic index is a numerical evaluation of the presence

of indicator species and their respective saprobic values. The saprobic
index can be part of a saprobic classification scheme with hydrochemical
variables like oxygen content, biochemical oxygen demand or ammonia-
nitrogen content, and/or microbiological variables or indices of pollution
(e.g. LAWA, 1976; Polishchuk et al., 1984; Aleksandrova et al., 1986;
Friedrich,1990).

According to the Pantle & Buck method (1955), each indicator species be-
longs to a certain degree of saprobity. The saprobic index S can be calculat-
ed for a particular subsystem of a biocenose using the following formula:

∑ (hi si )
s=
h
∑ i

where
i= number of species, hi is the quantitative abundance of i-th species
(1 = very rare; 9 = mass development) and si is saprobic value of i-th
spe-cies (0 = xenosaprobic, 4 = polysaprobic).

An important objection against this formula is the fact that a species is

part of one distinct saprobic zone only, whereas the tolerance usually has
a gaussian distribution.

An alternative method is based upon concepts on saprobic valence and in-

dicator weight (Zelinka & Marvan, 1961). To each species a value on a 10-
point scale of saprobic valence is assigned. With the use of this method the
maximum frequency of the species in a specific zone of pollution is taken into
account. The calculation of the saprobity level X is as follows:

∑ (si hi gi )
x=
∑ (hi gi )

where
i = number of species, si= saprobic valency of i-th species for saprobity level
X, hi = semi-quantitative abundance, gi = indicative weight of species (1-5).

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 29
 Scope and limitations
The origin and historical evolution of saprobic or saprobity
indices has been extensively reviewed by Sládecek (1973). The indicator
values for saprobity for all species result from empirical data of research
in rivers in Central Europe. At present, the saprobic system is mainly
used in two ways that differ in calculation method (i.e. the formula of
Pantle & Buck or the formula of Zelinka & Marvan) and in applied species
indicative values (i.e. the list of Sládecek (1973) or the revised list given
in the latest German standard (DIN 38410)).

This revision was based on statistical data analysis of long term biological
water quality monitoring. Phototrophic species like algae were excluded
because they do not fit into the definition of saproby (heterotrophic inten-sity).
Other criteria for selecting indicator species were: only benthic species are
included which reflect the situation of the site; identification at species level
should be possible with available keys; the organisms should be spread over
Central Europe and finally the saprobic valences should be as narrow as
possible (Friedrich,1990). Saprobic systems can differ in the number of
distinguished saprobic zones and the index calculation which is used. The
system implies more knowledge than actually exists: pollution tolerances are
highly subjective and based on ecological observations and rarely confirmed
by experimental studies (Slooff, 1983).

Advantages of the saprobic system are:

- quick classification of the investigated community (saprobiological
index) can be made on a universal scale from the standpoint of
practical use of the water (Sládecek, 1979);
- classification of assessment results are suitable for defining water
quality objectives or standards and allow clear presentations in colors
on a geo-graphical map;
- the saprobic system can be used in testing for compliance with
stan-dards.

Information requirements
The Saprobic index can be obtained for several biotic groups: de-
composers (bacteria), primary producers and consumers (zooplankton and
zoobenthos/macroinvertebrates). In some countries the Saprobic index S is
calculated based on macroinvertebrates (e.g. Germany and Austria) while
other countries (also) apply algal species. Saprobic indices are often tied to
hydrochemical indices or classifications.

Application of saprobic index requires a qualitative sampling and assess-

ment of abundance of one or more biotic groups. Identification is manda-
tory at species level because the requirements and tolerances differ for
cer-tain species within the same family.

Presentation methods
For the saprobic system several classification schemes are
known. Classification of assessment results into a distinct (5-7) number of
classes creates the possibility to present results in colours on a
geographical map of the river(basin) under study.

Examples
The saprobic system was and is up till now applied in many Euro-
pean countries, e.g. Germany and Austria. In Germany a saprobic system
(Saprobiensystem) is in use for routine monitoring and assessment of run-
ning waters, as a part of an ecological assessment in water quality maps

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 30
 (Gewassergutekarte). (In annex 5 this method is briefly introduced,
fol-lowed by an elaboration on the structure quality assessment).

Koskciuszko & Prajer (1990) applied the saprobic index (formula of Pantle
& Buck) in assessing the effect of municipal and industrial pollution on the
biological and chemical quality in a Polish river. The Pantle & Buck method in
Sládeceks modification has proved to be most convenient for the major-ity of
the investigations (Polishchuk et al., 1984). Authors came to the con-clusion
that evaluation of water quality based upon phytoperiphyton, phy-toplankton,
zooplankton and zoobenthos proved to be quite close to each other. In most
cases, study of one of these biotic components provided suf-ficient
information for quality monitoring purposes.

3.6 Habitat quality assessment

Although the assessment of habitat quality can not be considered a

biologi-cal assessment method, attention will be given to this issue in this
section because it can be part of ecological assessment.

Objective
Assessment of habitat quality concerns recording and evaluating
physical characteristics of watercourses. A specific application assess habitat
quality with respect to key species in order to quantify impact on habitats and
related species after physical disturbances or rehabilitation measures.

Principle
At present, there are at least two important methods for
assessing habitat quality of watercourses, namely:
- the Habitat Evaluation Procedure (HEP), developed by the US Fish
and Wildlife Service;
- habitat quality assessment as part of an integrated assessment
method like in the Rapid Bioassessment Protocols (to be discussed in
Section 3.7) or an ecological method like the German stream structure
assessment which complements the biological assessment of water
quality (to be discussed in annex 5).

The HEP approach is elaborated in this section. Later on in this section

(in the examples), attention is also paid to other methods of habitat quality
as-sessment.
The Habitat Evaluation Procedures follow a selective approach for
individu-al key species (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 1980). Abiotic
variables of a habitat relevant to the key species are quantified for a
specific site under study. This information is related to the known
tolerances and preferences of the target species, which are quantified in
Habitat Suitability Index mod-els (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 1981).
The HSI models calculate the habi-tat quality, which is a value between
0.0 and 1.0. In a HEP the habitat quality is multiplied by the habitat area,
resulting in habitat units, a combi-nation of quality and quantity measures.

Scope and limitations

The Habitat Evaluation Procedures provide a means to quantify the
impact of water management measures with respect to loss of habitat
structure, and to quantify compensating measures or evaluate rehabilita-tion
measures. Important distinguishing features compared to classical bio-logical
assessment methods are the devotion to single key species and the absence
of a true assessment classification. The main purpose lies in

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 31
 quantification rather than quality assessment. While at this time HEPs
are mainly used in the United States, the application in Europe is
currently in-vestigated (TNO, 1992). In future, the method may become
a part of an integrated assessment scheme.

................................
Figure 3.6
Monitoring and assessment elements monitoring sampling/analysis reference state
of Habitat Evaluation Procedures. determining biological status

assessment numerical evaluation scientific

index calculation

classification arbitrary quality classes

judgement on quality level

political
compliance testing standards

subjective
colour coding

graphics/presentation

Information requirements
Habitat quality assessment methods all require field inspection
and measurements on abiotic variables like stream morphology, substrate
types and surface areas, particle size distribution, current velocity
etcetera. Fur-thermore, when applying HEP as many as possible HSI
models have to be available concerning the designated key species.

Presentation methods
Results of the field investigations in Habitat Evaluation
Procedures can be presented on maps by means of a Geographical
Information System (GIS) indicating the suitability of specific areas for the
key species. No stan-dard classification could be found in literature.

................................
Figure 3.7
Diagrammatic cross section of a d c b a b c d
river corridor indicating survey
zones [red-rawn from National
Rivers Authority, 1992].

W.L.
a. Aquatic zone
b. Marginal zone
c. Bank zone
d. Adjacent Land Zone

Examples
On a regional scale, much effort has been devoted to develop
methods for assessing the abiotic habitat structure. In Germany and
Austria many efforts are in progress to develop water structure maps
('Gewässerstrukturgütekarte') (Friedrich et al.,1993) (see annex 5).

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 32
 In the United Kingdom the River Corridor Survey (RCS) is used as a habitat
based tool to evaluate the (potential) impact of land drainage and flood
prevention measures on bird, mammals and riparian invertebrates. The
background is being formed by wildlife and nature conservation guidelines
(Rheinallt, 1990). Only in limited regions is the habitat information related to
species information. The technical methodology of RCS includes the re-
cording of major habitats in four zones of the riverine ecosystem: the aquatic
zone, the marginal zone, the bank zone and the adjacent land zone (see
figure 3.7; redrawn from National Rivers Authority, 1992).

3.7 Rapid Bioassessment Protocols (RBP)

A fairly recent development in biological assessment in the United States

is the use of Rapid Bioassessment Protocols. The approach was first
devel-oped by Karr (1981) for fish communities and later refined. The US
Envi-ronmental Protection Agency developed in 1989 the so-called Rapid
Bioas-sessment Protocols

Objective
The objective of RBP is the assessment of ecological integrity and
impairment of streams, using macroinvertebrate and/or fish communities.

Principle
Rapid Bioassessment Protocols combine the assessment of the
bio-logical condition or quality with the assessment of habitat quality (see
fig-ure 3.7). This combined evaluation implies that the method can be
consid-ered as an ecological assessment method (Plafkin et al., 1989).
Five protocols have been designed, increasing in complexity and
sampling re-quirements and thus improving assessment results,
depending on the de-sired purpose.

................................
Figure 3.8
Monitoring and assessment elements monitoring sampling/analysis reference state
of Rapid Bioassessment Protocols. determining biological status

assessment numerical evaluation scientific

index calculation

classification arbitrary quality classes

judgement on quality level

political
compliance testing standards

subjective
colour coding

graphics/presentation

RBP IV consists of a certain number of diversity indices and a number of

comparative indices, called metrics (see Section 3.2.). These metrics
assess the biological condition of the benthic community, divided in three
catego-ries: structure, community balance and functional feeding group

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 33
 (Barbour et al., 1992). Habitat quality concerns factors like substrate and
instream cover, channel morphology and riparian and bank structure.
The major governing principle of the method is the comparison with a ref-
erence site or a set of reference data. This principle is comparable with RIV-
PACS. The difference lies in the nature of the reference site: in RIVPACS this
is site-specifically predicted, in RBP this is a mean situation of a set of
unaffected sites. It is concerned with the habitat structure available to mac-
roinvertebrate or fish community, compared to the habitat structure of a
reference site under natural conditions. This results in a percentage resem-
blance, which can be classified from poor to excellent. Afterwards the habi-tat
quality is evaluated in combination with the biological condition of the
communities, resulting in an integrated assessment (see Section 3.6).

Scope and limitations

Application of Rapid Bioassassment Protocols is found to be
limit-ed to the United States. In a number of States (e.g. Ohio, Arkansas,
Illinois, New York) the basic approach of this method has been tested and
further developed. No examples of application in Europe have been found
in litera-ture.

Barbour et al. (1992) published an extensive evaluation of the metrics con-

cerning biological quality with respect to redundancy and variability among
metrics for a set of data from reference streams. They proposed to restrict the
number of metrics because of occurring redundancy and dependency.

................................
Figuur 3.9
Conceptual base for Rapid benthic community health
Bioassess-ment Protocols [after
Barbour et al., 1992].

community community functional feeding

structure balance group
metric 1 metric 1 metric 1
metric 2 metric 2 metric 2
metric n metric n metric n

biological condition habitat quality

integrated assessment

Information requirements
Most biological metrics use the benthic macroinvertebrate com-
munity and in some cases the fish community. Calculation of the metrics
requires standard sampling techniques, which are extensively described
and accompanied with guidance and data sheets.
The identification of macroinvertebrates is required at the family level,
while abundances can be estimated in a qualitative manner. As a result
the assessment can be considered ‘rapid’.
It should however be noted that the RBP's are not more rapid that
biotic indices.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 34
 The variables concerning the habitat quality are also compared with a ref-
erence site and results are give as a percentage resemblance, which in turn
is classified in one of four classes from non- impaired to severely impaired.

Presentation methods
The results of RBP is presented as numbers in a table
(Plafkin et al., 1989).
A guidance on (graphical) presentation methods (e.g. by means
of coloured classification) is not given.

Examples
In literature no examples of application outside the United
States of America have been found.

3.8 Ecosystem approach in integrated water management

Ecological water quality assessment shows three important

characteristics (Klapwijk et al., 1994):
- an approach which includes the functioning of the whole aquatic eco-
system considering a number of abiotic and biotic components and
their interrelations;
- a multilateral approach instead of an approach from only a limited num-
ber of influencing factors such as saprobity and trophism. As many
as possible factors, affecting the characteristics of water types, are
in-volved;
- ecological assessment provides the water manager with special tools
in order to steer an aquatic ecosystem in the desired direction.

Based on these characteristics, an ecological assessment method for

Dutch running waters has been developed, based on macroinvertebrate
commu-nity (STOWA, 1992).
Further details about this method are given in Annex 6. At the moment,
the method can be applied to all regional, small waters in the
Netherlands. For large rivers, the AMOEBA approach is followed.

................................
Figuur 3.10
Monitoring and assessment elements sampling/analysis
of AMOEBE approach. monitoring determining biological status reference state

assessment numerical evaluation scientific

index calculation

classification arbitrary quality classes

judgement on quality level

political
compliance testing standards

subjective
colour coding

graphics/presentation

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 35
 Principle
In the ecosystem approach the river is considered to be a part of
a drainage basin water system which includes both water body, bottom,
banks and the terrestrial zone (Laane & Lindgaard-Joergensen, 1992;
Schulte-Wülwer-Leidig, 1992). As a result of the complex interactions
between both abiotic determining factors and biotic components, an eco-
system approach is needed in monitoring and assessment to provide
infor-mation on water management objectives and human uses. The goal
of in-tegrated management is to maintain healthy ecosystems in which
sustained use by man is possible. Minimal human influence is expected to
provide a natural or reference situation, which can be pursued.

Policy objectives for water systems have to be verifiable. Sufficient

informa-tion is needed on reference state, as a management target, as
well as the actual situation. Deviations of the actual status with respect to
reference or objective, should be measurable.

For Dutch water management, the AMOEBA (acronym for General

Method of Ecosystem Description and Assessment) has been developed
(Ten Brink et al., 1991) to evaluate the measured states. The AMOEBA-
ap-proach is based on the assumption that an ecosystem which is not or
hard-ly not manipulated, offers the best guarantee for ecological
sustainability: the reference system. The introduction of a reference
provides a standard by means of which an assessment of the ecological
condition of a system can be made.

Information requirements
Information on the reference situation has to be available,
whether from historical sources or the river system itself or from
analogous situa-tions in other places. To provide information on the
present state, monitor-ing is required, concerning chemical, physical and
biological parameters. The parameters should be representative for the
ecosystem or ecosystem compartment. The reference values for the arms
of the AMOEBA are not necessarily representing the same year.

Presentation methods
The AMOEBA provides a special method to present or visualize
in a graphical way the quantitative relation between reference situation,
tar-get situation and present state.
The AMOEBA model is thought to be of practical use to policy makers
and decision makers, as a large amount of gathered data is
comprehensively summarized and visualised.

Figure 3.11 shows an example of a river AMOEBA (reprinted from Van Dijk
& Marteijn, 1993). The targets are in blue, the present state is light
coloured whereas the reference situation for each target variable is at
the circle. The target value is a political choice and need not necessarily
be equal to the reference. It can be somewhere between the present
situation and the reference.

The described ecosystem approach and presentation method do not reveal

the underlying methodology to measure biological and ecological variables.
The AMOEBA focuses on a number of key species for which abundance may
be the assessed variable. On the other hand, the method provides a strong
facility to apply totally different methods, e.g. for different variables from
ecological or ecotope models or Habitat Evaluation Procedures.
An important distinctive feature compared with other biological assessment

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 36
 methods is the ability to present assessments of different zones of the
river-ine ecosystem together.
This could be a feature of major importance in the perspective of integrat-
ed catchment assessment as an integrating presentation tool. This ap-
proach is being applied in the Netherlands for the lower part of the Rhine
(Van Dijk & Marteijn, 1993). It should be noted that an AMOEBA has to be
accompanied by a specification of the part of the riverine ecosystem
(loca-tion, stretch, whole river) that is concerned.

....................................................
Figure 3.11
Example of a river AMOEBA [from Van Dijk & Marteijn, 1993].

toestand 1988 Situation 1988

streefbeeld Target situation

referentie (1900-1930)
period of reference (1900-1930)

ooibos floodplain forest totaal algen phytoplankton

nevengeul side channel
Watergentiaan Fringed water-lily
natuurlijke oever natural river bank
vrij overstromende uiterwaarden Driekantige bies Scirpus triqueter
flooded river foreland Rivierfonteinkruid Pondweed

Das Badger Veldsalie Meadow clary

Otter Otter Engelse Alant Inula britannica

Kwartelkoning Corncrake dansmuglarve 1 Midge larva 1

Oeverzwaluw Sand martin dansmuglarve 2 Midge larva 2

Aalscholver Cormorant kokerjuffer Caddis larva

Kuifeend Tufted duck larve eendagsvlieg Palengenia

Kwak Night heron erwtemossel Pea clam

Fint Twaite shad Brasem Bream

Zalm Salmon Barbeel Barbel
Steur Sturgeon

3.9 Methods concerning ecosystem functioning

Principle
All assessment methods mentioned above concern the structure
of communities of the aquatic ecosystem. Another essential feature is
the functioning of the ecosystem.
This regards the processes that take place in the ecosystem, like primary
production or gross, primary and secondary consumption, mineralisation
or degradation.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 37
 Functional features can be studied on the scale of responses of
individuals (e.g. Scope for growth test (Bayne et al., 1985)) and of whole
communities (e.g. P/R ratios (Odum, 1975), the autotrophy index of
Weber (Matthews et al., 1980) and total community respiration (Grimm &
Fisher, 1984; Maltby & Calow, 1989). Some aspects of ecosystem
functioning can be pointed out as implicitly underlying structural methods
like the saprobic system.

There might be discussion as to whether some standard analyses variables

in routine monitoring and assessment are to be considered functional or
structural variables, for example biomass and chlorophyll-content. In this
report, these are regarded as functional, because the variables are consid-
ered a measure for the intensity of primary production.
The variables offer however only fragmented information on the
ecosystem functioning and are not often implemented in a coherent
model of ecosys-tem functioning.

................................
Figure 3.12
Monitoring and assessment elements monitoring sampling/analysis reference state
of functional methods. determining biological status

assessment numerical evaluation scientific

index calculation

classification arbitrary quality classes

judgement on quality level

political
compliance testing standards

subjective
colour coding

graphics/presentation

Another example of a functional method based upon an experimental set-

up, is the Algal Growth Potential test (AGP). In this bioassay a test
organism e.g. the green algae Scenedesmus quadricauda, is used to
determine the availability of nutrients for algal growth and to determine
the growth limit-ing nutrients (Klapwijk et al., 1988). In the international
standard Selenas-trum capricornutum (=Raphidocelis (Pseudokirchneria)
subcapitata) is ap-plied (ISO 8662).

Examples
In a comparative study of 8 river longitudinal stretches of Lower Dnepr
in Russia, an evaluation of water quality was made on the basis of benthic
invertebrates using Pantle & Buck's Saprobic index and some func-tional
indices like Gross primary production (P), Destruction of organic mat-ter (D)
and P/D ratio (Aleksandrova et al., 1986). Authors found the results of both
methods to be closely coinciding. However different indices did not always
result in the same classification for an individual stretch. Aleksandrova et al.
feel that a combined evaluation gives a unique answer

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 38
 about the water quality of the stretch while deviations in indices make
it possible to judge characteristics of the pollution.

A comparison between several pollution assessment methods in three

Belo-russian rivers showed that functional phytoplankton indicators (like
chloro-phyll-a content and phytoplankton production rate) reflect the
pollution of the water and its level of self purification much better than
bioindicators of the Zelinka & Marvan and Pantle & Buck system
(Mikheyeva & Ganchenkova, 1980).

Bombówna & Bucka (1972) applied a bioassay technique to characterize

the potential productivity of Carpathian rivers, in order to forecast eutroph-
ication effects after dam construction in the reservoir. They showed with
this method that rivers with a similar chemical composition may have dif-
ferent influence on the growth of algae and that bioassay techniques pro-
vide additional information to chemical analyses.

Detchev proposes a theoretical model (called functional-ecological

ap-proach) based on functional characteristics of the aquatic
ecosystem (Dechev et al., 1977; Detchev, 1992).
A major problem with evaluation of biological effects by assessing biologi-
cal responses is the strong non-linear dose-effect dependence. For this
rea-son, variables such as species composition, diversity and community
struc-ture are not sufficient for describing river water quality. Structural
variables can not provide information about rates of processes because
there is not a linear or even constant dependence between biomass and
metabolic rates in ecosystems.

The functional-ecological approach operates with direct in situ measure-

ments of rates of basic processes forming the turnover of substances
and energy in the ecosystem and the balance concentrations of
important sub-stances. The theory is based on the properties of an
optimal self-regulating system (biochemical reactor). The proposed
functional approach still is under development and seems not to be
available for routine purposes so far.

3.10 Assessment of toxicity, bioaccumulation and mutagenicity

Often disturbance of biological water quality in biological assessment is

ex-pressed in terms of ‘pollution’, without specifying the substances
involved. Biological assessment methods, like biotic indices (see Section
3.4), do not offer the possibility of discriminating between effects of
organic and toxic compounds. The indicative value of species in terms of
pollution tolerance was deducted from correlative field observations,
supported by chemical analysis, limited to saprobic and trophic
compounds. Slooff (1983) indicates that those values have not been
confirmed or validated by experimental studies.

Currently available methods in assessing river water or sediment

toxicity can be categorized as follows:
- in stream or in situ observations on communities, comparable with
other biological assessment systems, to identify effect of toxic
substances (3.10.1);
- in stream bioassays (active monitoring) (3.10.2);
- laboratory toxicity tests (bioassay) to assess acute and chronic toxicity
to single species (3.9.3);

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 39
 - bioaccumulation monitoring (3.10.4);
- integrated toxicity assessment (3.10.5).

Mutagenicity is considered to be a specific toxicological effect of

sub-stances and is briefly discussed in Section 3.10.6.

3.10.1 In stream observations on communities

At this moment, there are very few available biological assessment
methods explicitly based on effect evaluation of toxicity to field commu-nities.
This is due to the fact that it is often not possible to discriminate between the
effects of toxic substances on organisms and populations and other abiotic
factors, that govern the presence of a community.

In most cases, experimental settings are used (see Section 3.9.3.) to assess
toxicity, and only in case of sediment quality evaluation are field evalua-tions
being used (see Section 3.9.5.). Investigations on the impact of toxic load on
benthic communities often apply diversity indices in comparing up-stream and
downstream locations of a discharge. It can be difficult to dis-criminate
between natural changes in community compositions along the longitudinal
axis of the river and the anthropogenic changes.

Index of Community Structure (ICS)

Clements et al. (1992), developed the Index of Community Struc-ture
(ICS) to assess toxic impact. This method is based upon experimentally
assessed sensitivity data for specific species and toxic substances (heavy
metals). The data were obtained from outdoor stream mesocosms. Sensitiv-ity
of a species was determined, after colonisation on artificial substratum in the
field, by measuring the reduction in abundance (relative to control stream) at a
given concentration in the mesocosm. The ICS is given as:

ICS=∑ sixpi

where sensitivity si is proportion reduction in abundance of i-th species

in treated streams relative to controls and p i is proportion abundance of
i-th species in field samples.

The method is under development and has not yet been applied for
routine monitoring purposes. The single-purpose character of the method,
like e.g. saprobic index, seems to prevent the method from becoming an
alternative for routine monitoring and assessment over a broad range of
streams and impacts. Two important limitations are:
- sensitivity estimates are obtained from a single set of experiments
during a short period of exposure and a specific community;
- sensitivity estimates are obtained for a single compound. The large
num-ber of toxic substances make it impossible to develop this method
for broad application.
The authors have already simplified the model by assuming that
toxicity of metals is fully additive and thus can be totalled.

3.10.2 In stream bioassays

This method concerns the placement of living organisms from a la-
boratory culture or an uncontaminated water into a river. The advantage of
this method is that it provides a direct way of measuring the response of
aquatic organisms to present water quality and possible presence of toxic
substances. Examples can be found in Seager et al. (1992).
They placed the freshwater amphipod (Gammarus pulex) in cages
up-stream and downstream different of types of effluent discharges.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 40
 Lethality in case of severe pollution or sublethal effects in case of mild
pol-lution can be studied. A sublethal test is the ‘Scope for Growth’ test.
This technique is based on the assumption that organisms stressed by
the pres-ence of pollutants have less energy available for growth and
reproduction because either a reduction in feeding rate efficiency or a
diversion of avail-able resources into preventing or repairing damage.
The food consumption and respiration of the caged animals is measured.

3.10.3 Laboratory toxicity testing

In the field of ecotoxicology, numerous single species laboratory tests
have been designed to assess toxicity of aqueous solutions like river water or
sediments. In principle, test organisms (mainly from standardised cul-tures)
are being exposed to river water or sediment that has been trans-ferred to the
laboratory. A very wide array of organisms from all trophic levels are in use
ranging from bacteria and algae to fish. The most widely used are species of
the waterflea Daphnia. Depending on the test organ-ism, many effect
parameters can be distinguished, e.g. lethality, reproduc-tion, development
etcetera. In literature many overviews of toxicity tests can be found e.g.
Buikema et al., 1982, Boudou & Ribeyre (1989), Hill et al. (1993), Phillips &
Rainbow (1993), De Zwart (1994). Also some ISO standards are available
(ISO 6341:1988 ; 7346-1/2/3: 1984).

A principle drawback of toxicity tests is the problem of extrapolation of the

observed effects under laboratory conditions to effects that can be
expect-ed under actual conditions in the field or stream.

3.10.4 Bioaccumulation monitoring

The objective of monitoring bioaccumulation is to determine the
actual bioavailability of (a mixture of) toxic substances governed by the
conditions at a give site. Accumulated concentrations of substances in
whole animals or specific tissues are related to environmental concentra-
tions. In determining bioaccumulation a biological and a chemical aspect
can be distinguished. Because of the use of living organisms the
assessment can be considered a form of biomonitoring. The subsequent
analysis meth-odology of substances in the organism can be considered
as a chemical method and will not be discussed here.
Four types of bioaccumulation monitoring can be pointed out : active bio-
accumulation monitoring (in stream), passive bioaccumlation monitoring
(in stream), laboratory setup and simulating methods.

active biomonitoring
Active biomonitoring is performed by collecting animals from unpollut-
ed locations and afterwards exposing them (in cages) in field situation at a
polluted station during a certain period of time. A typical advantage is the
possibility of standardising methodology with respect to exposure duration,
selection of collected animals by age, size or uniformity.
Often used animals are freshwater mussels (for example Dreissena polymor-
pha, Anodonta anatina) because their ability to resist high levels of toxic sub-
stances and their wide distribution of occurrence (Hemelraad et al., 1986).

A major disadvantage is the seasonality in the availability of suitable

organ-isms at an unpolluted collecting station. When using mussels
during the spawning period, the biomass of the mussels is not constant.
Furthermore one has to be certain of the absence of pollution at the
collecting station. It should be kept in mind that the actual occurrence of
the collected species at the polluted site is not a necessity.

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Biological Assessment 41
 passive biomonitoring
Passive biomonitoring is performed by collecting organisms from a
particular station at which they are exposed to toxic substances at present
and in the past. Disadvantages are clearly the lack of knowledge about the
duration of exposure and presence of the animals and the variability in age,
size and available number of individuals of the sampled population.
For the performance of the analysis, a minimum amount of tissue has to
be available. Also, the toxicity in the water system may be at a level in
which the preferred species cannot survive. Numerous examples in
literature can be found, e.g. Timmermans et al. (1989). In the Dutch
routine monitoring program for inland waters, Eel (Anguila anguila) is
used to assess bioaccu-mulation.

laboratory experiments
Assessment of bioaccumulation in the laboratory is performed by
means of bioassays with field-contaminated water or sediments. Test or-
ganisms from a standardised culture are exposed to this water or sediment
under controlled conditions (examples: Hill et al., 1993; Hemelraad, 1988).

simulating bioaccumulation
From more recent date a method is under development in which
bioconcentration of complex mixtures of hydrophobic substances in river
water is simulated. The bioconcentration is simulated by equilibrium parti-
tioning of these compounds onto ‘empore disk’ a filter material containing a
solid phase. Water samples are stirred with a piece of this disk for 14 days.
Afterwards the disk is eluted and the extract is concentrated, fol-lowed by
chemical analysis of total compounds (Verhaar et al., 1994).

3.10.5 Integrated toxicity assessment

To overcome the drawbacks of both field observations and labora-
tory tests, an integrated approach is proposed in which both aspects are
evaluated in combination with chemical analyses. In the Netherlands, the
Sediment Quality Triad (SQT) was introduced for integrated assessment of
polluted sediments, following the original development in the United States
(Van de Guchte, 1992). The SQT considers three components: bioassays in
laboratory, field observations on communities and chemical analysis.

In the past few years, the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Waterworks
has applied this method to a large number of suspect sites, especially in
the sedimentary zone in the downstream regions of the main rivers.
Hendriks (1994) presents an integrated assessment for river water quality
which is based on the same principle.

3.10.6 Mutagenicity
Mutagenicity testing of river water can be performed by laborato-ry
analysis of river water samples. ‘In stream’ methods exist of determining
incidence of diseases or morphological deviations of organisms in a com-
munity, for example tumor incidence in bottom dwelling fish.

Mutagenicity tests can be performed with the aid of bacteria (Ames-test,

Mutatox (Ho & Quinn, 1993); De Zwart, 1994) or fish (Sister Chromatid
Exchange test with Notobranchius rachovii; (Hendriks, 1994)). A fairly re-
cent mutagenicity test is the UMU-test, which resembles the Ames test
and is currently under discussion in European standardisation committees
(CEN).

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Biological Assessment 42
 3.11 Microbiological assessment of hygienic status

Objective
Microbiological methods aim at determining the presence of
path-ogenic bacteria to assess the hygienic status and potential risk to
human (and animal) health.

Principle
Surface water can carry a number of different pathogenic organ-
isms due to discharge of (treated) domestic and agricultural waste water.
Monitoring the hygienic status of surface water is performed with microbi-
ological water tests. In general these tests involve enumeration of the
viru-lent organisms and identification of special organisms indicative of
hygieni-cally suspect contamination or even pathogens themselves. Of
the pathogens and facultative pathogenic types which can occur in water,
the bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae are of special importance.
The species Salmonella, Shigella, Escherichia, Erwinia as well as the so-
called coliform bacteria belong to this family. Salmonella and Shigella are
classed as being particularly pathogenic, while the others being classed
as faculta-tively pathogenic.

Scope and application

Most monitoring programmes of river water quality contain micro-
biological analyses in order to obtain information on the hygienic state of the
water. In general, the assessment is performed in relation to functional uses
like recreation, agriculture or drinking water supply. Faecal streptococ-ci
(Enterococci) are considered to be the best indicators for human and ani-mal
faecal contamination. They rarely multiply in water.

The sampling and enumeration methodology can be applied in all types

of running waters throughout Europe. There are no limits in the
application because of biogeographical distribution of species.

Information requirements
Sampling methodology for microbiological purposes has been
internationally standardised (ISO, 1990). Frequently used species or
genera in microbiological assessment are Escherichia coli (E.coli),
Salmonella and faecal Streptococci. Differences in methodology for
selection of species or species groups involve the temperature of
incubation (22, 37 or 44 °C) and incubation media.

Presentation method
Results of microbiological methods are mostly expressed as
num-ber per unit of volume and presented in tables.

3.12 Summarizing overview

Table 3.2 provides a tentative summary in which some

characteris-tics of the assessment methods in general and some single
methods in par-ticular have been brought together. Information on
sampling strategy like methodology and frequency as well as the
taxonomic level of identification is strongly dependent on the community
observed. To avoid complexity, these have been left out.

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Biological Assessment 43
 Legend:
Table 3.2

Biological Assessment
* = provided regional differentiation
TE= terrestrial zone (floodplains)
zones: AQ= aquatic; sd= bottom sediment;
Tentative summary on assessment methods.

group general method assessment riverine ecosystem level of application: stream community suitability for use in
RP = riparian/amphibious zone,banks;

and examples purpose zone - structure (S) regional (R) order an integrated
- functioning (F) national (N) catchment approach
............. .

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .diversityandcomparative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .impactoncommunity . . . . . . . . . .AQ(,RP,TE) . . . . . . . . . . . . .S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .RN . . . . . . . . .1-10 . . . . . . . . . . . .AMF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .-
indices structure (aspecific)

biotic indices/scores biological quality AQ 1-8 MD +*

BBI (annex 3) biological quality AQ 1-6? M
RIVPACS (annex 4) biological quality AQ SSS(F) RNNN 1-8? M

44
saprobic index degree of saprobity AQ S(F) N 3-10 BAMF +

toxicity AQ (+sd) F RN ABMF +

toxicity/bioaccumulation

habitat quality RCS (river corridor habitat structure AQ/RP S RN ? - -

...................................................................................

communities: A = algae, B= bacteria; F= fish,

survey); Germanstreamstructureassessment.HEP AQ/RP/TE S R ? M,F,BI,MM,V

MM= mammals, V= macrophytes
M= macroinvertebrates, BI= birds,

suitability of habitatforkeyspecies

Rapid Bioassessment ecological integrity AQ S N 1-? M,F +

Protocols

Ecosystem approach AMOEBA integrated management AQ/RP/TE S N high orders AFMV, +

STOWA ecological quality AQ S N 1-5 BI/MMM -

Functional methods ecosystem processes AQ F RN +

 stream order:

average discharge drainage area river width stream order **

river size (m3/s)(km2)(m)
.............. ............... ............... .......... .............
very large rivers > 10,000 > 106 > 1,500 > 10
large rivers 1,000 - 10,000 100,000 - 106 800 - 1,500 7 to 11
rivers 100 - 1,000 10,000 - 100,000 200 - 800 6 to 9
small rivers 10 - 100 1,000 - 10,000 40 - 200 4 to 7
streams 1 - 10 100 - 1,000 8 - 40 3 to 6
small streams 0.1 - 1.0 10 - 100 1-8 2 to 5
brooks < 0.1 < 10 < 10 1 to 3

* depending on local conditions

(from Chapman, 1992)

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Biological Assessment 45
UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment
Biological Assessment 46
4. Current practices

..................................................................................

4.1 General

This chapter provides an overview of the results of the enquiry among

UN/ECE-Task Force-countries with respect to the routine biological
surface water monitoring and assessment of rivers. Details on other
elements of the current practice on monitoring and assessment can be
obtained from part II of these series of reports.

It should be kept in mind that monitoring programmes differ in different

rivers within one country with respect to objectives, variables, sampling
fre-quencies etcetera. Furthermore, the enquiry was restricted to
transboun-dary rivers and provides limited or no information on national
monitoring programmes in other rivers or watercourses. It has to be noted
that the lev-el of detail in the questionnaires shows very large differences
between countries making balanced comparisons very difficult.

In Section 4.2, a general description of current practices is presented

for the ECE-countries which responded to the questionnaire. The
following sections provide summarizing tables on different elements of
biological monitoring and assessment. Additionally, comparisons are
made between current practices and the state-of-the-art of biological
assessment as de-scribed in chapter 2.

4.2 Biological assessment practices in ECE-countries

AUSTRIA
Criteria for the routine biological surface water monitoring pro-
grammes are set by international commissions for transboundary rivers.
The objectives of the programmes are to classify water quality, to collect
in-formation with regard to implications of waste water impacts and to per-
form saprobiological investigations. The variables are most extensive on
the Danube, including four to twelve samples a year for microbiological
vari-ables and biological structure of phytoplankton and phytobenthos,
zoo-plankton and invertebrate fauna. For the other reported
watercourses, the set of variables is less extensive and the frequencies
are lower. A ‘biocoe-notic analysis’ is performed on the biotic groups,
resulting in a saprobic in-dex. Various species indicator lists regionally
used in Austria have been re-vised and summarised into a catalogue
Fauna Aquatica Austriaca (Moog, 1995). This catalogue includes indices
of saprobity, functional feeding group classification and expected zonal
distributions following biocoenotic regions for Ciliates and selected
macrozoobenthic groups; all specifications are at species level. A new
guideline for the ecological survey and evalua-tion of running waters
(Onorm M 6232-1995) has been completed recent-ly.

BULGARIA
Routine biological surface water monitoring is not yet applied in
transboundary rivers, but a biological assessment method by means of
macroinvertebrates is under development. The method will be based on

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Biological Assessment 47
 hydrobiological, toxicological and microbiological analyses and aims at
as-sessing impact of pollution on water biota. In some Bulgarian rivers
other than transboundary rivers, biological assessment is performed by
applica-tion of a biotic index and/or a saprobity index.

CZECH REPUBLIC
Biological analysis of bioseston, followed by saprobic evaluation
is currently used in the routine surface water monitoring network. In addi-
tion, regular monitoring by means of macrozoobenthos analysis is
applied in running waters (a special network of several hundreds sites)
with a sam-pling frequency of once per 5 years.

Chlorophyll-a analyses are performed occasionally, however, the regular

monitoring in the national network is to be introduced from 1995. Toxicity tests
(mainly Daphnia, fish and algae) are performed on selected localities, usually
as a special investigation as well as Ames' mutagenicity tests. De-tailed
biocoenotic analyses are performed in the framework of the river-ba-sin
projects, i.e. the Elbe river, Oder river and Morava river with a frequen-cy of
once per 3 years. These investigations also include bioaccumulation of
pollutants in biomass (fish, macrophytes, macroinvertebrates).

Microbiological analyses are based on determination of coliform bacteria

and faecal (thermotolerant) coliform bacteria in standard national network
for surface waters. Occasionally heterotrophic bacteria (meso- and
psycho-rophilic plate counts) and faecal streptococci are also
determined. Data are produced mainly by laboratories of the River
Boards Ltd., while national database of the parameters is held in the
Czech Hydrometeorlogical Insti-tute (Prague).

CROATIA
For routine biological monitoring and assessment in Croatia a sa-
probic system is applied. The saprobity index S according to Pantle & Buck is
calculated for phytoplankton, zooplankton and invertebrate fauna using the
species indicator value list of Sládecek (1973). Sampling of all three bio-tic
groups is performed by filtration of 50 litres over a plankton net. Apart from
saprobiological classification of water quality, cluster analysis is per-formed to
investigate biological structure with emphasis on Eubacteria,
Diatomaeae, Chlorophyceae, Cyanophyceae, Rotatoria,
Nematoda, Amphipoda, Cladocera, Cnidaria, Oligocheata, Copepoda,
larvae and Pro-tozoa.

ESTONIA
Estonia reports routine biological surface water monitoring only
for lakes. There is no reporting on this subject for transboundary rivers.

FINLAND
Routine biological surface water monitoring is limited to
microbio-logical analyses. Thresholds for these variables are
implemented in water quality criteria for recreational use, fishing water,
raw water supply and general water quality. This applies to chlorophyll-a
as well. To assess the impact of effluents of pulp industries, the
accumulation of toxic substances (organochlorides) in soft tissues of
mussels and muscle tissue of fish is monitored.

From literature it has been found that the Finnish-Norwegian

Transboun-dary Water Commission launched an extensive programme
in 1989 (Koskenniemi, 1990).

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Biological Assessment 48
 The programme, which includes monitoring of macroinvertebrates,
investigates the general state of the river and its natural value. The sam-
pling sites are riffles, and apart from the kick-net method, colonization
methods have also been used. In the examination of the results,
ordination and indices (e.g. BMWP) will be used in the programme that
started in 1994.

GERMANY
Information is reported for 13 transboundary rivers. Besides infor-
mation on larger rivers, such as the Rhine, Donau, Elbe and Salzach, infor-
mation was also sent on smaller ones, such as the Issel, Niers, Vechte etc.
Routine biological monitoring takes place in (nearly) all rivers. Rhine moni-
toring is part of an international programm, integrated in national and
statual monitoring systems. Such an international programm also ex-
ists for the Elbe river. Strategy and choice of parameters are updated regu-
larly. Biological structure is monitored for phytoplankton, zooplankton, in-
vertebrate and fish communities. A saprobic index is calculated. Toxicity tests
are performed with bacteria, algae and invertebrates, while accumula-tion of
toxic substances is monitored in fish, regularly, on a 5-yearly base.

HUNGARY
The Hungarian biological monitoring programmes include some
bacterial analyses and chlorophyll-a content. Sampling is performed weekly.

LATVIA
The routine biological monitoring on transboundary rivers since
1994 concerns bacteria, phytoplankton and zoobenthos. The aims are as-
sessment of the ecological status and quality of water body, examination
of biological quality of the receiving water on the transboundary hydrofront
and determination of the suitability of the water body for fisheries and oth-
er uses.

Information on all three biotic groups are elaborated into hydrobiological

indices which make up a water quality classification scheme together with
a hydrochemical water pollution index (WPI). The microbiological index is
the number of saprophytic bacteria.
The phytoplankton or periphyton (distinction is not clear in
questionnaire) is evaluated in the saprobity index of Pantle & Buck. In
addition to this in-dex, biomass estimates, summation of population
biomasses and determi-nation of dominant species are also performed.

The zoobenthos (or invertebrate) community is sampled by means of a

Bottomscraper and Peterson grab and evaluated by means of a biotic
index (not specified) and the relative Oligocheata abundance. Species
composi-tion is determined at species level.

NETHERLANDS
On the large rivers in the Netherlands routine biological surface
water monitoring is performed, but not necessarily at the border location.
The objective is to get an indication of the ecological status, detect trends
and test the status against standards. Information is used to detect trends
in the status of the ecosystem and test the status against standards and
ref-erence or target situations. The monitoring in large rivers consists of
analy-ses of biomass and bacteria, accumulation of toxic substances in
mussels and eel, the biological structure of phytoplankton, phytobenthos,
zoo-plankton, invertebrates, fish and birds. Macroinvertebrates are
collected by means of artificial colonizing substrates.

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Biological Assessment 49
 On the smaller transboundary rivers and lowland streams, biological
moni-toring and assessment is performed at the border location by
regional wa-ter authorities. Most regional water boards have developed
their own bio-logical assessment method, which differs from the national
method for large rivers. Since 1992 a nation-wide ecological assessment
method has become operational for small running waters based on
macroinvertebrate community (STOWA,1994).

NORWAY
The biological variables monitored are limited and mostly orientat-ed
on biological structure of phytoplankton and zooplankton community.
Periphyton is removed from natural substrates and provides algal indicators
for determination of the general degree of pollution. The zoobenthos is
sampled with the kicking method and Surber sampler. In some rivers, the fish
community is sampled by means of electrofishing and evaluated. In one river,
bioaccumulation of metals is monitored in fish, while in other riv-er heavy
metal content is monitored in water plants (Fontinalis spp).

POLAND
The Polish questionnaire explicitly reports the absence of routine
biological surface water assessment of transboundary rivers. Only
monitor-ing of coliform bacteria is reported. However, in other streams in
Poland the Saprobic index based upon phytoplankton and zooplankton
has until recently been in use. The calculation method of Pantle & Buck
was applied, in combination of the species indicator value list of Sládecek
(1973). Since 1993 only examination of bioseston is obligatory.

PORTUGAL
“Routine” biological surface water monitoring is not yet applied in
transboundary rivers. Nevertheless, in some transboundary rivers and other
Portuguese rivers, biological assessment has been performed, on a regular
base since 1986. The biological variables monitored concern mainly phyto-
plankton, periphyton and zoobenthos or macroinvertebrate community. The
sampling methods of Strickland & Parsons (1972) and Utermohl
(1958) are used in case of phytoplankton. For the zooplankton, net-filtra-
tion is used. Periphyton is removed from artificial substrates. The
zooben-thos is sampled by handnet and the fish community is sampled
by means of electrofishing and gill nets.

Classification of biological water quality is based on the Belgium biotic in-dex

(see annex 3). During the hydrological year (October '94 - September '95) a
biological assessment programm for rivers and reservoirs in the north of
Portugal is under development, parallel with the river water quality in-ventory
(use-related physical and chemical classification; nationwide).

ROMANIA
It is reported that routine biological surface water monitoring
takes place at all rivers with a frequency of 4 times a year. Variables
include biomass, bacteria, accumulation of toxic substances in mussels
and fish and biological structure of phytoplankton, zooplankton,
invertebrates, fish and birds. Romanian river water quality standards
regard algal biomass and total colif-orms as determinands of a biological
kind. Planktonic biomass is used for classification of water quality into
trophic zones. For phytoplankton and zooplankton, a Saprobic index
according to Pantle & Buck, modified by Knöpp is applied.

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Biological Assessment 50
 With respect to the invertebrate community, Rumania reports little use
of this information due to the absence of adequate equipment and
methodology. The sampling method is not standard and the full range
of invertebrate fauna is not sampled.
Information on submerged macrophytes and marginal vegetation are
not obtained regularly.
In special studies heavy metal and pesticide accumulation in mussels and
fish is monitored. Fish and bird inventories appear irregularly and in
specific areas only. For fish, an indicator list for water quality is provided.
Toxicity testing is performed with algae, invertebrates and fish.

SLOVAK REPUBLIC
Biological monitoring of Slovakian transboundary rivers consists
in general of a number of microbiological parameters. The former
consists of psychrophilic, mesophilic bacteria, faecal and total coliforms
and faecal streptococci. Hydrobiological monitoring is based on
community structure approach, while assessment is performed by means
of the saprobic index, calculated according to Pantle & Buck, for
plankton, microphytobenthon and macrozoobenthon.

The aforementioned microbiological and hydrobiological parameters

are one part of five sets of parameters which make the classification
scheme for water quality.

UKRAINE
Biological monitoring of Ukrain transboundary rivers in general
consists of measurement of biomass and determination of biological
struc-ture of phytoplankton and zooplankton and of microbiological
parameters. Saprobic indices can be calculated.

UNITED KINGDOM
The biological monitoring of the transboundary rivers between
Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland consists in general on
macro-phytes and invertebrates. The biotic score results from the River
Inverte-brate Prediction and Classification System (see annex 4), which
is used for classification of rivers.

4.3 Biological structure

A summary on the biological surface water quality monitoring and

assess-ment methods concerning biological structure is given in table
4.1. Only application in transboundary rivers is reported. Details on
sampling devices and sampling quantities have been left out. These
matters are seldom re-ported.

Comparison of the data in table 4.1 with the state-of-the-art presented in

chapter 3 leads to a number of conclusions:
- In more than half of the countries some kind of biological assessment
re-garding biological structure is performed;
- macroinvertebrate community structure is most often used in
monitoring and assessment, followed by phytoplankton;
- the dominant biological assessment method appears to be a saprobic
system with the aid of the saprobic or saprobity index. The wide-spread
use of a biotic index of biotic score that has been pointed out in chapter 3
(section 3.4) is not reflected by the reporting countries. Biotic scores are
either not applied in these countries or are not applied in transboun-

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Biological Assessment 51
 dary rivers. Combining literature sources and results of the enquiry, there
appears to be a general geographical division in which the biotic index is
more often used in Western-European countries and the saprobic index is
more often used in Central and Eastern-European countries.
- The main impact on river water quality that is being assessed in the
wa-ter body is the saprobic state or influence of discharged domestic
waste water.
- Routine biological river quality assessment is focused upon the biotic
communities of the water body or aquatic zone, while amphibious and
terrestrial zones are hardly involved. The little attention for higher troph-ic
levels like fish, birds and mammals in rivers and riverine ecosystems might
be an underestimation of current practice. Traditionally these groups have
been of interest and have been monitored by nature con-servation
institutions rather than water quality management.
- While realising that the questionnaire did not contain any specific
ques-tions on habitat quality or ecological assessment, there appears
to be no current practice on this issue in transboundary rivers.
- The enquiry did not contain specific questions on classification
schemes and presentation methods for biological assessment
methods. The re-ported current state is therefore not complete.

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Biological Assessment 52
................................
Table 4.1
Current practice on the use of biological structural aspects of transboundary river ecosystems in ECE countries.

notes:
P&B = Pantle & Buck;
x = present; frequency not specified
+ = present
# = 1/4 = once per 4 years
# = bioseston = plankton (=phytoplankton, zooplankton, mycoplankton, bacterioplankton),
microphytobenthon, macrozoobenthon.
# = microphytobenthon
biotic groups: PP= phytoplankton, PB = phytobenthos/periphyton, MP = macrophytes, ZP = zooplankton,
M = macroinvertebrates (or macrozoobenthon), F = fish, B = birds.

name of method frequency of monitoring biotic groups use in remarks

(calculation method) (number per year) classification
PP PB MP ZP M F B
........ ..................... ... .... .... ... .... ... .. ........... .................
Austria biocoenotic analysis 1 1-2 1 1 1-2 +
(saprobic index)
Bulgaria (under development) x
(biotic & saprobic index)
Croatia Saprobity index 2 2 2 2 +
(P&B/Sládecek)
Czech biocoenotic analysis 1/3# 1/3# 1/3# 1/3# 1/3 Elbe river.
Republic saprobic index 12## 1/5# # + national network
Estonia no biological assessment
Finland no biological assessment
Germany saprobic index x x x x + frequency differs
from weekly
(phytoplankton) to
yearly (macrobenthos)
Hungary saprobic index 12 12 4 2/3
#
Latvia saprobity index 4 from +
(from 1994) 1995
Netherlands 1/4 # 1/4 1/4 1/4 1/4 1 1 in small rivers
different systems
Norway 0-2 0-1 first first 1-2
time time
1993 1993
Poland no biological x saprobic index is
assessment of applied in other rivers
transboundary rivers
Portugal no yet applied
Romania saprobic index 4 4 4 1 1/2
(P&B/Knöpp)
Slovak saprobic index 12-24 4## 12-24 4-6 +
Republic of bioseston#
(P&B/Sládecek)
Ukrain saprobic index 3-4 3-4 3-4 +
United RIVPACS 1 3 +
Kingdom

4.4 Functional and microbiological parameters

Table 4.2. provides a summary on reported and applied methods with re-
spect to ecosystem functioning in the sense of occurring processes and
mi-crobiological analyses and assessment. The numbers in the table
represent (ranges of) applied sampling frequencies.

It is apparent from table 4.4. that both application and frequency of eco-
system functioning and microbiological variables show a large variation for the
reporting countries. Only chlorophyll-a is frequently used as a variable
providing information on ecosystem functioning. The value of chlorophyll-a
lies mainly in the insight in the degree of eutrophication of the system. In

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................................
Table 4.2
Current practice on the use of functional aspects of transboundary river ecosystems and microbiological assessment in ECE countries.
# membrane filtration
x present, frequency not specified
Numbers in table refer to frequency per year; ranges refer to different waters.
chl-a = chlorophyll-a content
Faecal coliforms = thermo-tolerant bacteria of coligroup (=E.coli)
Total coliforms = E.coli, Enterobacter sp, Klebsiella sp, Citrobacter sp)
1) special project on Elbe river
2)introduced in standard network from 1994.

functional parameters microbiological parameters

biomass chl-a primary faecal total faecal Salmonella other
production coliforms coliforms streptococci
........ ....... ..... ......... ........ ........ .......... .......... ..........................
Austria 12 4-12 4-12 4-12
Bulgaria
Croatia MPN37
Czech
1) 2)
Republic 1/3y (12) 12 12 12 mesophil.bact.
Estonia
Finland 3-12 4-12
Germany 12 52 52 13 13 colony count 22°C
Hungary 52 52 52 52
Latvia x x x x x coliphages, heterotrophic plate
count, index of saprophyt
bacteria
Netherlands 26 13 13
Norway 12(44°C)# 12(37°C) # membrane filtration
Poland 2-4 2 26
Portugal
Romania 4 4 4 4 4 4 mesophil bacteria
Slovak 12-24 12-24 12-24 12-24 12-24 psychrophilic, mesophylic
Republic bacteria
Ukrain 4 12 12 coliphages, saprophyt bacteria.
United
Kingdom

some countries chlorophyll-a content is one of the water quality criteria in

a classification scheme e.g. in Finland. Biomass and primary production
are rarely used in routine biological surface water monitoring in
transboundary rivers.

The assessment of hygienic state of river water by means of microbiological

methods is applied in almost all reporting countries. The assessment of faecal
coliforms is the most widely used method, immediately followed in ranking by
the faecal Streptococci. Less frequently used are total coliforms, total bacterial
counts and Salmonella. Only very limited information can be deducted from
questionnaires with respect to methodology. Sampling fre-quencies vary from
quarterly to weekly.

4.5 Toxicity, mutagenicity and bioaccumulation

Table 4.3. summarizes the methods reported by the ECE countries for
rou-tine monitoring of toxicity, mutagenicity and accumulation in
transboun-dary rivers.
From this table it can be concluded that assessment of impact of toxic sub-
stances in river water and bottom has found limited application so far in
transboundary waters. The impression arises that this is due to a certain
historical separation of disciplines (hydrobiology and ecotoxicology) rather
than a result of a lack of available methods. In recent years these two disci-
plines have tended to converge. Researchers concerned with biological as-
sessment of running waters call for methods to evaluate toxicological ef-fects
on stream communities, while ecotoxicologists are aware of the

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 54
 limitations of laboratory bioassays e.g. in risk assessment of new com-
pounds (Friedrich, 1992; Van Leeuwen, 1995). Bioaccumulation
methods are likewise rarely used.

................................
Table 4.3
Current practice on assessment of toxicity, mutagenicity and bioaccumulation of transboundary rivers in ECE countries.
1) in special projects (Elbe and Oder)

toxicity mutagenicity bioaccumulation

river water sediment Ames
............... ............................. ...................... ............ .....................
Austria
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czech
Republic Daphnia, fish (occasionally) fish, macroinvertebrates,
macrophytes 1/3 y 1)
Estonia
Finland chironomids, oligochaetes
Germany bacteria,algae,invertebrates,fish. fish (1/5y)
Hungary
Latvia bacteria,protozoa,invertebrates invertebrate
(T. piriformis)
Netherlands invertebrates (porewater) 1/4 chironomids mussels,
fish 1/4 y
Norway fish (1-2), water plants
Poland Lebistes reticulatus? (occasionally)
Portugal
Romania invertebrate,fish
Slovak Republic
Ukrain*
United Kingdom*

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 55
UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment
Biological Assessment 56
5. Recommendations for harmonisation

..................................................................................

General considerations on biological monitoring and assessment

It is generally accepted in literature that biological monitoring and
assessment provides much extra value to the 'traditional' chemical
monitor-ing of river water quality. Selection of suitable biological methods
should regard and be related to the assigned functions of the river and
their re-spective objectives.

Monitoring and assessment of the ecological status of a river, which repre-

sents an intrinsic natural value rather than an human assigned functional
use, can only be performed by means of biological or ecological methods.

From the reviewed state-of-the-art (chapter 3) it can be concluded that

there is a great variety of available biological assessment methods both in
number and in scope of application. The scope of the methods ranges
from assessment of a single impact on a single compartment of the river
to as-sessment of multiple aspects of the entire riverine ecosystem. A
general ob-servation is that the number of comparable available methods
decreases as the scope of the method increases.

From literature sources, a development from chemical and biological to

ec-ological assessment can be distinguished. Nevertheless there is at
present no 'holistic' method which covers all kind of potential impacts at
the level of a riverine system or catchment area. Reviewing literature,
many calls can be found for an integrated approach in which combined
application and evaluation of specific methods for specific problems
provide better and more comprehensive insight in river water quality.

Biological assessment tools should be carefully chosen with respect

to designated functional uses and/or the intrinsic ecological value of
the riverine ecosystem

Recommendations for harmonisation of current practices in

UN/ECE Task Force countries
Evaluation of the current practices on biological assessment in
ECE Task Force countries (chapter 4) reveals great differences in the
extent of implementation and use of biological methods in the countries
involved. Only a few methods are commonly applied.

This report takes as a starting-point that recommendations for

harmonisa-tion should join with current practices, while considering the
perspective of future developments, rather than be restricted to
application of the state-of-art methods only. Application of new monitoring
and assessment tech-niques requires implementation time, building of
knowledge and sufficient financial and administrative means.

River quality assessment should be harmonised over ecological

relevant borders of catchment areas rather than along political
borders (as illus-trated by figure 5).

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 57
 On the issues of monitoring strategy aspects like site selection, sampling
frequencies and sampling methodology, the information in the enquiries
shows a large variation in the level of detail, hindering balanced recom-
mendations for harmonisation. Sampling frequency and methodology is
closely related to the biotic group that is concerned.

................................
Figuur 5.1
River assessment strategies.
Left: present: assessment methods sea sea
and river management along
political borders.
Right: future situation: management
along catchment borders.
A
B
C

A B

Recommendations on specific methods are as follows:

The benthic macroinvertebrate community is considered as a

good practical tool for routine monitoring and assessment of
biological quality of the aquatic zone of rivers. Determination on
species level is essential.

biotic index
The methodology of a biotic index or score can be used in one
modifi-cation or another over a very wide geographical area.
Regional diffe-rentiation is however a necessary but possible
prerequisite. Regions should be based on ecological borders rather
than political borders. The family level identification makes
determination rapid and prevents the method from being too much
differentiated. The development of RIVPACS and the calculation of
the Ecological Quality Index (EQI) shows that the method can
provide measures that can be implement-ed in standards.

Implementation of this methodology over a wide area requires the

need for well defined reference situations and communities in all
dif-ferent river types over the countries involved.

It is recommended in assessment of biological river water quality to

use a biotic index based on macroinvertebrates whether or not re-
gionally differentiated. The establishment of a database of well de-
fined unaffected reference communities based on ecoregions will
fa-cilitate the use of implementing biotic index in setting water
quality standards. Considering the future information needs, a
determina-tion on family level ‘as a rule’ will be not enough.

saprobic index
The saprobic index is the most commonly used biological
assessment method in the reporting countries in the assessment of
biological stat-us or quality of river water.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 58
 The purpose of this index is to classify the saprobic state of running
waters, covering the full range from unpolluted to extremely polluted
waters.
Currently, two formulas are mainly in use to calculate the saprobic or
saprobity index, being the formulas according to Pantle & Buck and
according to Zelinka & Marvan. Although the former is more frequent-
ly used, the formula of Zelinka & Marvan is preferred on theoretical
grounds. It takes the distribution of indicator species over several sa-
probic zones into account, whereas the Pantle & Buck formula
consid-ers each species to belong to one zone only. The present
state of data automation with computers eliminates the major
drawback of the Zelinka & Marvan formula being the elaborated
calculation. The use of relative abundances or estimates reduces the
effort of identification of species in the sample.

Most countries use the species indicator value list of Sládecek, which
dates from 1973. The latest revision of this list which has been put
for-ward by Germany is recommended to use for benthic
invertebrates. The evaluation of one biotic group provides sufficient
information on saprobity.

It is recommended in assessing the saprobic state of a river, to

use the saprobity index according to Zelinka & Marvan combined
with the most recent species indication value list. In case of using
the sa-probity index the limitations have to be taken into account.

Sampling frequencies and observed biotic group show important

differenc-es. For upstream courses, macroinvertebrates are preferred
and for down-stream courses of large rivers phytoplankton may serve the
best practical means.

Recommendations on future developments

Adapting new monitoring and assessment methods in current
practices can be performed by a step by step extension, knowing that at
present no integrated, comprehensive method is available. A variety of
measures are required to adequately assess river quality. It has to be under-
stood that (current practices on) chemical monitoring serve the objectives
related to a number of functional uses in a satisfactory way. The assess-ment
of ecological status and quality however could be extended.

The present biological assessment methods based on the

macroinvertebrate or phytoplankton community composition, which
basically involve organic pollution, should be extended with other aspects
of the river water body like habitat quality, toxicity and sediment quality.
On habitat quality a num-ber of regional methods are under development.
Toxicological and sedi-ment quality assessment methods are sufficiently
available from the re-search field of ecotoxicology, mostly involving
experimental or laboratory setups.

In the perspective view of a river as part of a riverine ecosystem with an

in-trinsic ecological value, other biotic groups like amphibians, water birds
and mammals in other compartments like banks, marshes and floodplains
have to be considered. These aspects have to be made measurable.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 59
 It is recommended to extend chemical monitoring and assessment to ec-
ological assessment. This can be achieved by additional successive steps:
- assessment of biological status of the river water body with
respect to biotic community composition, structure and functioning;
- involving the assessment of abiotic factors or habitat quality in
relation to biotic communities, ecological assessment;
- application of ecotoxicological tools like experimental and
laboratory setups;
- extension of the assessment of river water body to the other zones
of the riverine ecosystem; an ecosystem approach.

It appears to be becoming common practice to evaluate the present ob-

served state on a specific element or aspect against a reference or target
situation. This requires a scientifically valid reference as has been
developed with RIVPACS. A method in which manyfold aspects can be
quantitatively evaluated and presented has been made available in the
AMOEBA ap-proach.

It is not to be expected nor wanted to develop complex integrated as-

sessment methods that include all biotic and abiotic variables. Instead,
such an integrated method should be composed of selected, “smart”
variables, that are proven to be representative for a community, sensitive
for general of specific impacts on riverine ecosystem elements.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 60
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macroinverte-brates: a case study for Limburg, The Netherlands, Wat.
Sci. Techn. 17: p. 867-878.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 67
 Tubbing, D.M.J., W. Admiraal, D. Backhaus, G. Friedrich, E.D. de
Ruyter van Steveninck, D. Müller & I. Keller, 1994.
Results of an international plankton investigation on the river Rhine, Wat.
Sci. Techn. Vol.29, no.3, p. 9-19.

Tuffery, G. & J. Verneaux, 1968.

Méthode de détermination de la qualité biologique des eaux courantes.
Ex-ploitation codifiée des inventaires de fauna du fond, Ministère de
l'Agriculture (France). 23 p.

UN/ECE, 1992.
Convention on the protection and use of transboundary watercourses
and international lakes, Done at Helsinki, on 17 March 1992. 12 pp.

US Fish and Wildlife Service, 1980.

Habitat Evaluation Procedures (HEP), 102 ESM.

US Fish and Wildlife Service, 1981.

Standards for the development of Habitat Suitability Index Models, 103
ESM.

Van de Guchte, C., 1992.

The sediment quality TRIAD: An integrated approach to assess
contaminat-ed sediments, In: Newman et al. (eds), 1992). River water
quality, ecologi-cal assessment and control.

Van den Brink, F.W.B., G. Van der Velde & A. Bij de Vaate, 1991.
Amphipod invasion of the Rhine, Nature 352, 576.

Van Dijk, G.M. & E.C.L. Marteijn (eds.), 1993.

Ecological rehabilitation of the river Rhine, the Netherlands research
sum-mary report, 1988-1992, Report of the project ‘Ecological
rehabilitation of the rivers Rhine and Meuse’ report no. 50.

Van Leeuwen, C.J., 1995.

Strategy for water quality management, In: Adriaanse et al. (eds).
Proceed-ings of the international workshop Monitoring Tailor-made 1994.
p. 93-104.

Vannote, R.L., G.W. Minshall, K.W. Cummins, J.R. Sedell & C.E.
Cushing, 1980.
The river continuum concept, Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 37: 130-137.

Verdievel, M.J.A., 1995.

Transboundary rivers: Belgian-Dutch experiences, In: Adriaanse et
al., 1995). Proceedings Workshop Monitoring Tailormade.

Verdonschot, P.F.M., 1990.

Ecological characterisation of surface waters in the province of
Overijssel (The Netherlands), Thesis. Agricultural University
Wageningen. The Netherlands.

Verhaar, H.J.M., F.J.M. Busser & J.L.M. Hermens.

A surrogate parameter for the baseline toxicity content of contaminated
water; simulating bioconcentration and counting molecules, Submitted
for publication 1994.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 68
 Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij, 1994.
Jaarverslag 1993, (Flemish Environmental Institute, Yearly report). Belgium.
(in Dutch)

Ward, J.V. & J.A. Stanford, 1989.

Riverine ecosystems: the influence of man on catchment dynamics and
fish ecology, In: Dodge (ed): Proceedings of the International Large
Rivers sym-posium. p. 56-64.

Wild, V., 1992.

Gewässerstrukturkarten - ein Beitrag zu einer besseren
Gewässerbeurteilung, Wasser + Boden. 3: p. 152-162.

Woodiwiss, F.S., 1964.

The biological system of stream classification used by the Trent River Board,
Chemy.Indust. 11, p. 443-447.

Woodiwiss, F.S., 1978.

Comparative study of biological-ecological water quality assessmetn
meth-ods. Summary report, Commission of the European Communities.
Nottingham, Sept/Oct.1976.

Woodiwiss, F.S., 1980.

Biological monitoring of surface water quality. Summary report,
Commis-sion of the European Communities. Severn Trent Water
Authority. UK. 45 pp.

Wright, J.F., P.D. Armitage & M.T. Furse, 1988.

A new approach to the biological surveillance of river quality using
macro-invertebrates, Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol., 23, p. 1548-1552

Wright, J.F., P.D. Armitage & M.T. Furse, 1989.

Prediction of invertebrate communities using stream measurements.
Regu-lated rivers; research & management, Vol. 4, pp. 147-155

Wright, J.F., M.T. Furse & P.D.Armitage, 1993. RIVPACS - a technique

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Poll. Control Vol 3. nr 4, p. 15-25.

Zelinka, M & P.Marvan, 1961.

Zur Präzisierung der biologischen Klassification der Reinheit fliessender
Gewässer, Arch. Hydrobiol. 57, p. 389-407. (in German)

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UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment
Biological Assessment 70
Monographs/proceedings

..................................................................................

Adriaanse, M., J. van de Kraats, P.G. Stoks & R.C. Ward, 1995.
Proceedings Monitoring Tailor-made; an international workshop on
moni-toring and assessment in water management held at Beekbergen,
the Netherlands 20-23 september 1994, 356 pp.

Chapman, D. (ed), 1992.

Water quality assessments; a guide to the use of biota, sediments and
wa-ter in environmental monitoring. UNESCO/WHO/UNEP. Cambridge.
585 pp.

Dodge, D.P. (ed), 1989.

Proceedings of the International Large River Symposium (LARS). Honey
Harbour, Canada, September 14-21 1986. Ottawa. 629 pp.

Ghetti, P.F. (ed), 1979.

Biological water assessment methods: 3rd technical seminar, organised by
the Commission of the European Communities. Parma, october 1978.

Harper, D.M. & Ferguson, A.J.D. (eds), 1994.

The ecological basis for river management, J. Wiley & Sons. Chichester.

Hellawell, J.M., 1986.

Biological indicators of freshwater pollution and environmental
manage-ment, London. 546 pp.

Hynes, H.B.N., 1970.

The ecology of running waters, Liverpool University Press. Liverpool.UK.

IRC (International Commission for the Hydrology of the Rhine

basin), 1992.
Ecological rehabilitation of floodplains; contributions to the European
work-shop, Arnhem, The Netherlands, 22-24 September 1992. 209 pp.

James, A. & L. Evison (eds), 1979.

Biological indicators of water quality, Toronto.

Newman, P.J., M.A. Piavaux & R.A. Sweeting (eds), 1992.

River water quality, ecological assessment and control, Commission of
the European Communities. Proceedings of the International
Conference of River Water Quality - Ecological Assessment and Control
held at Brussels 16-18 dec 1991. 751 pp.

Odum, E.P., 1975.

Ecology (2nd edition). Holt, Rinehart & Winston, London, N.Y. 244 pp.

Rosenberg, D.M. & Resh, V.H. (eds), 1993.

Freshwater biomonitoring and benthic macroinvertebrates, Chapman and
Hall. London.

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Biological Assessment 71
 Walley, W.J. & S. Judd (eds).
River water quality monitoring and control, Ashton University. UK, 249 pp.

Ward, J.V. & J.A. Stanford, 1979.

The ecology of regulated streams, New York, 1979. 409 pp.

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Biological Assessment 72
List of ISO-standards concerning biological monitoring and assessment

..................................................................................

Microbiological methods

ISO 6222, 1988.

Water quality - Enumeration of viable micro-organisms - Colony count
by inoculation in or on a nutrient agar culture medium, 2 p.

ISO 6461-1, 1986.

Water quality - Detection and enumeration of the spores of sulfite-
reduc-ing anaerobes (clostridia). Part 1: Method by enrichment in a
liquid medi-um, 3 p.

ISO 6461-2, 1986.

Water quality - Detection and enumeration of the spores of sulfite-reduc-ing
anaerobes (clostridia). Part 2: Method by membrane filtration, 3 p.

ISO 7704, 1985.

Water quality - Evaluation of membrane filters used for
microbiological analyses, 4 p.

ISO 7899-1, 1984.

Water quality - Detection and enumeration of faecal streptococci. Part 1:
Method by enrichment in a liquid medium, 3 p.

ISO 7899-2, 1984.

Water quality - Detection and enumeration of faecal streptococci. Part 2:
Method by membrane filtration, 4 p.

ISO 8199, 1988.

Water quality - General guide to the enumeration of micro-organisms
by culture, 15 p.

ISO 8360-1, 1988.

Water quality - Detection and enumeration of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Part 1: Method by enrichment in liquid medium, 5 p.

ISO 8360-2, 1988.

Water quality - Detection and enumeration of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Part 2: Membrane filtration method, 5 p.

ISO 9308-1, 1990.

Water quality - Detection and enumeration of coliform organisms, thermo-
tolerant coliform organisms and presumptive Escherichia coli. Part 1:
Mem-brane filtration method, 10 p.

ISO 9308-2, 1990.

Water quality - Detection and enumeration of coliform organisms, thermo-
tolerant coliform organisms and presumptive Escherichia coli. Part 2:
Multi-ple tube (most probable number) method, 9 p.

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Biological Assessment 73
 ISO 9998, 1991.
Water quality - Practices for evaluating and controlling microbiological
col-ony count media used in water quality tests, 22 p.

Sampling and analysis

ISO 5667-1, 1980.

Water quality - Sampling. Part 1: Guidance on the design of sampling
pro-grammes, 13 p.

ISO 5667-2, 1991.

Water quality - Sampling. Part 2: Guidance on
sampling techniques, 9 p.

ISO 5667-3, 1985.

Water quality - Sampling. Part 3: Guidance on the preservation and
hand-ling of samples. 13 p.

ISO 5667-6, 1990.

Water quality - Sampling. Part 6: Guidance on sampling of rivers
and streams, 9 p.

ISO 8692, 1989.

Water quality - Fresh water algal growth inhibition test with
Scenedesmus subspicatus and Selenastrum capricornutum, 6 p.

ISO 7828, 1985.

Water quality - Methods of biological sampling - Guidance on
handnet sampling of aquatic benthic macro-invertebrates, 6 p.

ISO 8265, 1988.

Water quality - Design and use of quantitative samplers for benthic
macro-invertebrates on stony substrata in shallow freshwaters, 9 p.

ISO 9391, 1993.

Water quality - Sampling in deep waters for macro-invertebrates - Guidance
on the use of colonization, qualitative and quantitative samplers, 13 p.

ISO 10260, 1992.

Water quality - Measurement of biochemical parameters -
Spectrometric determination of the chlorophyll-a concentration, 6 p.

Toxicological methods

ISO 6341, 1989.

Water quality - Determination of the inhibition of the mobility of Daphnia
magna Straus (Cladocera, Crustacea), 7 p.

ISO 7346-1, 1984.

Water quality - Determination of the acute lethal toxicity of substances to
a freshwater fish (Brachydanio rerio, Hamilton-Buchanan (Teleostei,
Cyprini-dae)). Part 1: Static method, 9 p.

ISO 7346-2, 1984.

Water quality - Determination of the acute lethal toxicity of substances to
a freshwater fish (Brachydanio rerio, Hamilton-Buchanan (Teleostei,
Cyprini-dae)). Part 2: Semi-static method, 9p.

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Biological Assessment 74
 ISO 7346-3, 1984.
Water quality - Determination of the acute lethal toxicity of substances to
a freshwater fish (Brachydanio rerio, Hamilton-Buchanan (Teleostei,
Cyprini-dae)). Part 3: Flow-through method, 10 p.

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Biological Assessment 75
Annex 1. UN/ECE-countries and involvement with Helsinki-Convention (1992)

..................................................................................

ECE-country Convention In Task Force

signed Mon. & Ass.
.................................... ........... .......... ...........
Albania x x
Andorra x
Austria x x x
Azerbaidjan x
Belgium x x
Belarus x x
Bosnia and Hercegovina x
Bulgaria x x x
Canada x
Croatia x x x
Cyprus x
Czech Republic x x x
Denmark x x
Estonia x x x
European Union x x
Finland x x x
Former Yugoslavian Republ. of Macedonia x
France x x
Georgia x
Germany x x x
Greece x x x
Hungary x x x
Iceland x
Ireland x
Israel x
Italy x x
Kazakhstan x
Kirgizistan x
Latvia x x
Lichtenstein x
Lithuania x x
Luxembourg x x
Malta x
Moldova x x
Monaco x
Netherlands x x x
Norway x x
Poland x x x
Portugal x x x
Romania x x
Russian Federation x x x
San Marino x
Slovak Republic x x
Spain x x
Sweden x x
Switzerland x x
Turkey x
Turkmenistan x
Ukraine x x
United States of America x
Uzbekistan x
United Kingdom x x x

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 76
Annex 2. Diversity indices and comparative indices
(reprinted from Hellawell, 1986 and Boyle et al., 1994)

..................................................................................

Diversity indices

1. William's Alpha index (Fisher et al., 1943):

S = loge N / α

where S = no. of species in community

N = no. individuals in community
α = index of diversity

2. Diversity index (Menhinick, 1964)

S
diversity index I =

∑N

3. Information theory index (Shannon, 1948):

n n
H= -1 ∗ ∑ ( j ) ∗ In ( j )
I I
where H = homogenity
I = total no. of individuals in community
nj = no. of individuals of j-th species

4. Brillouin's H:

H= 1 [In (I!)-∑ In (n !)]

I j

symbols as above;
ln(I)! = natural logarithm approximated
using Stirlings formula

5. Diversity index (Simpson, 1949):

n [n -1] j
j

symbols as above

6. Diversity index (Margalef, 1961):

S-1
D=
In (I)
symbols as above

7. Diversity index (McIntosh, 1967):

index I = 1-√ ∑ n j2

symbols as above

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Biological Assessment 77
 Comparative indices

8. Jaccard's index:
Sc
Jaccard’s Index =100 ∗

where Sc = no. of species in common between

two communities
Si,Sj = no. of species in communities i,j

9. Quotient of similarity (Sorensen, 1948):

2Sc
I=
(Si + Sj)
symbols as above

10. Percent Similarity (PCS):

PCS = 100 ∗ [1.0 - 0.5
∑ poj - pj ]

where pj = nj/I0 = proportion of perturbed

community belonging to species j
poj = noj/I0 = proportion of original
community belonging to species j

11. Pinkham & Pearson:

ratio (j)
B=∑
So
where S0 = total no. of species in original
community
ratio (j) = min[nj, noj] / max [nj, noj]

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Biological Assessment 78
Annex 3. Belgian biotic index

..................................................................................

In Belgium, a biotic index is in use for routine monitoring and assessment of

running waters on a nationwide scale (Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij, 1994).
The system will be presented here as an example of the assessment
methods group of biotic indices and biotic scores (see Section 3.4.).

Objective
The method aims at the biological quality assessment of
running waters in Belgium.

Principle
The Belgian Biotic Index (BBI) has been deducted from the first
bi-otic index method (Trent Biotic Index, Woodiwiss, 1964) and the biotic
in-dex proposed by Tuffery & Verneaux (1968); De Pauw & Vanhoren,
1983; NBN, 1984; De Pauw & Vannevel, 1990).

Execution of the method concerns the following steps: sampling of macro-

invertebrate community, identification and calculation of the Belgian Biotic
Index. The calculation is performed by using the table with indicating fau-
nistic groups and number of systematic units. A systematic unit involves
mostly taxonomical groups at genus or family level. The resulting value of the
Belgian Biotic Index is classified on a 5-class quality scale ranging from
lightly polluted or unpolluted to very heavily polluted.

................................
Table A1
Calculation table for the Belgian Biotic Index.
1S.U.: number of systematic units observed of this faunistic group.

I Faunistic group II III Total number of systematic units present

0-1 2-5 6-10 11-15 16 and more
Biotic Index:
................................. ............. ... .... ..... ...... ...........

1
1. Plecoptera or Ecdyonuridae 1: several S.U. - 7 8 9 10
2: only 1 S.U. 5 6 7 8 9

2. Cased Trichoptera 1: seweral S.U. - 6 7 8 9

2: only 1 S.U. 5 5 6 7 8

3. Ancylidae or Ephemeroptera 1: more than 2 S.U. - 5 6 7 8

(exceqt Ecdyonuridae) 2: 2 or < 2 S.U. 3 4 5 6 7

4. Aphelocheirus or Odonata 0: all S.U. mentioned

or Gammaridae or Mollusca above are absent 3 4 5 6 7
(except Sphaeridae)

5. Asellus or Hirudinea or Sphaeridae 2 3 4 5 - -

or Hemiptera (except Aphelocheirus)

6. Tubificidae or Chironomidae ot 1 2 3 - - -
the thummi-plumosus group

7. Eristalinae (Syrphidae) 0: alle S.U. mentioned 0 1 1 - -

above are absent

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Biological Assessment 79
 Scope of application
The BBI has been designed for use in Belgium. The running
waters of Belgium range from shallow, slow to fast running waters to
deep water-courses.

Information requirements
Qualitative collecting of macroinvertebrates is performed by a
hand-net in all accessible micro-habitats during a certain time: 3-5
minutes. The sampled organisms are identified at the family or genus
level, depend-ing on the order concerned.

The genus level is applied to Plathelmintes, Hirudinea, Mollusca,

Plectopte-ra, Ephemeroptera, Odonata, Megaloptera, Hemiptera wheras
the family level is applied to Oligochaeta, Crustacea,
Trichoptera,Coleoptera, Diptera, Chironomidae thummi-plumosus or
Chironomiade non-thummi-plumosus. Every observed genus or family
represents a systematic unit. After identifi-cation, the presence of the
most sensitive faunistic groups (column I) and the number of systematic
units of a particular group (column II) as well as the total number of
systematic units (colomn III) present in the sample is counted. From a
table, the combination of both variables results in a biotic index.

A systematic unit represented by a single individual is not taken into

ac-count because its occurrence may be accidental. In deep and large
rivers colonizing substrates may be applied (De Pauw et al.,1993).

Presentation
The results of the biotic index are classified on a quality scale,
pro-vided with a colour banding.

................................
Table A2 Class Biotic Index Significance colour
Classification and colour coding of bio- ..... .......... ............................... .......
logical assessment results in Belgium. I 10-9 lightly or unpolluted blue
II 8-7 slightly polluted green
III 6-5 moderately polluted -critical situation yellow
IV 4-3 heavily polluted orange
V 2-1 very heavily polluted red
0 absence of macroinvertebrates black

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Biological Assessment 80
Annex 4. RIVPACS (River InVertebrate Prediction and Classification System)

..................................................................................

As a result of a nationwide research programme on the macroinvertebrate

communities of British rivers in the years 1977-1988, the Freshwater Bio-
logical Association has developed an alternative system for biological as-
sessment of river quality (Wright et al., 1988, 1989, 1993). At the time, bi-
ological surveillance of UK rivers was performed by means of the BMWP
score (Biological Monitoring Working Party; Chester, 1980) and the ASPT
(Average Score Per Taxon; Armitage et al.,1983), which can be considered
members of the group of biotic indices and biotic scores (see Section 3.4.).

The newly developed system, RIVPACS, has been used in the nationwide
biological assessment of rivers in the United Kingdom in 1990. By means of
cluster analysis of a large set of ecological data from unpolluted references
rivers in the UK, a classification scheme was developed. Afterwards, a mul-
tiple discriminant analysis was applied as a prediction technique.

Approach
The approach of RIVPACS comprises four major steps: measure-
ment of a number of chemical and/or physical features of a river site; pre-
diction of macroinvertebrate community in terms of probability of presence at
the family level; sampling and identification of macroinvertebrate com-munity
at the site; and evaluation of degree of disturbance by comparison of
observed and predicted number of taxa or index score (ASPT or BMWP). The
predicted community (score) is a site-specific assessment endpoint. The
endpoint predicted can also indicate the natural range of variation that might
expected at each site due to random sampling error.

Scope of application
The scope of application is at the moment restricted to the United
Kingdom due to differences in occurrence of species and ranges of
enviroo-mental variables (like latitude and longitude) between the United
Kingdom and other countries. Some testing experience is available in
Spain, Canada and Australia. The basic approach and multivariate
techniques are portable to other nations.

The essenuial requiremeots for developing the RIVPACS approach in other

regions in Europe are the availability of a wide range of good quality streams
and rivers to act as reference sites, coupled with use of standard sampling
techniques, a uniform level of identification and access to good quality
environmental data much of which may be map-based.

Information requirements
The measurement of 10 to 12 different environmental variables,
which are grouped into six options, is required at a site under study.

Sampling is performed by a pond-net in all major habitats, in proportion of

occurrence, using kicking and sweep-netting for 3 minutes. Data from
three seasons are required. Identification of macroinvertebrate species is
performed at (BMWP) family level. In the original dataset, the identification
level was at species level. It is possible to predict species probability of
oc-currence and so calculate indices other than BMWP.

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 81
................................ Eight variables common to all menu options:
Table A3 ...................................
The six environmental options available Distance from source Mean water width
for predictions in RIVPACS II. Mean substratum Mean water depth
Altitude Latitude
Discharge category Longitude

plus the following, according to option:

................................

option 1 2 3 4 5 6
....... .. .. .. .. .. ..
alkalinity + + + +
Slope + + + +
Mean air temperature + + + +
Air temperature range + + + +
Chloride +

With the aid of the abiotic analyses, an ‘expected’ biotic score is

calculated. The 'observed' biotic score is calculated on the basis of the
sampled com-munity. Afterwards, the relation between observed and
predicted provides a measure, called Ecological Quality Index (EQI),
which could be classified into four quality classes:

................................
Table A4 biological Obs/exp. Obs/exp. Obs/exp.
Biological banding of ASPT, number class ASPT no.taxa BMWP
of taxa and BMWP (3 EQI's) score score
based on sampling in three seasons. .......... ......... ......... ........
A (highest) ∑ 0.89 ∑ 0.79 ∑ 0.75
B 0.77-0.88 0.58-0.78 0.50-0.74
C 0.66-0.76 0.37-0.57 0.25-0.49
D <0.66 <0.37 <0.25

One of these EQI's could be used in setting statutory water quality

objec-tives (Seager, 1993).

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Biological Assessment 82
Annex 5. Ecological assessment for running waters in Germany

..................................................................................

Saprobic system for water quality

In (the Former Federal Republic of) Germany the saprobic system
(Saprobiensystem) has been in use for routine monitoring of running wa-ters
since the late seventies at the federal and state level (LAWA, 1976; LWA,
1982). During the first decade, the existing species indicator list was used
(Sládecek,1973). Recently the species list was revised by a group of experts
with the aid of statistical analysis of long term monitoring data of water quality
(Friedrich,1990). This revised list has become a part of a Ger-man standard
(DIN 38410) and is limited to benthic macroinvertebrates. The calculation of
the saprobic index is based on the formula of Zelinka & Marvan (1961) (see
Section 3.5). The results, classified into 7 water quality grades, were
presented in water quality maps (Gewässergütekarte) in which stretches of
running waters are coloured. Furthermore, the saprobic index became a part
of the General Quality Requirement for running wa-ters for use in water
management plans, e.g. in Nordrhein-Westfalen. The saprobic system has
proven to be valuable in assessing the biological water quality (Friedrich,
1992).

Ecological approach: structure quality

In recent years, after significant reduction of the load of organic,
biodegradable substances and successive improvement of biological water
quality, the awareness of the deficits in the structure and functioning of
running waters arose. Currently an ecological assessment method is under
development which in the near future has to lead to a federal Water Qual-ity
Atlas. This atlas will contain the following elements for running waters:
- water quality map based on the saprobic index, translated into water
quality classes. It should be noted that the class coding is not a
rigorous scheme, but results after careful examination of all ecological
information available (Friedrich, pers.comm.,1995);
- stream structure quality map: this method is at the testing stage now
(see below).
- mapping of some chemical features;
- mapping of acidity of small running waters. This method has been
tested. (Steinberg & Putz).

The stream structure assessment is made for three zones: the aquatic, ripar-
ian (banks) and the terrestrial zone or river valley. 27 single parameters,
grouped into 6 main parameters, concerning structure are distinguished.

Scope and application

The stream structure assessment can be applied for a range of
me-dium size running waters from head stream to small, fordable rivers.
The underlying typology of running waters contains 11 types. The
assessment method is now under development in the state of Nordrhein-
Westfalen in Germany but will be applied throughout Germany in the near
future after the testing phase. efforts have also been made in assessing
the structure quality in other German states (Wild, 1992).

t has to be noted that the ecological assessment method is concerned

about abiotic structural features of running waters that are important to

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 83
 the ecosystem, but the method can not be considered a holistic ecological
assessment method (Friedrich,1993). The assessment of water quality and
structure quality has been kept separate on purpose. Thus, the assessment is
prevented from being complex due to many interactions between biotic and
abiotic factors. Furthermore, the structure assessment allows deficits to be
made immediately clear to daily water management of organization and
maintenance. Instruments and measures for improvement or rehabilitation
result directly from the assessment.

Information requirements
Monitoring structural quality is performed by means of standar-
dised protocols and forms to be filled out in the field. The Starting point for
the assessment is the natural reference situation (Leitbeild) of 6 main pa-
rameters for the water under investigation. Knowing the water type and
respective reference situation, the field worker can estimate the deviation
of the site under study and classify for the 6 main variables by (grouped)
averaging of all 27 structure variables. The assessment is made for
stretches which differ for one or more variables, with a maximum length of
one ki-lometer.

Presentation method
The resulting classes for the main variables are averaged for
the respective zones: aquatic, riparian and terrestrial zone. For the
ecological assessment a cartographical lay out has been developed
(figure A1). The colour coding is as follows:

ecological stream structure class degree of impairment colour

.......................... ................................... .........
1 virtually no impact (kaum beeintrachtigt) dark blue
2 little impact (gering beeintrachtigt) light blue
3 medium impact (massig beeintrachtigt) dark green
4 clear impact (deutlich beeintrachtigt) light green
5 weak impairment (merklich geschadigt) yellow
6 strong impairment (stark geschadigt) orange
7 severe impairment (ubermaßig geschadigt) red

................................
Figure A1
Cartographic legend for water structure
quality in Germany.
terrestrial zone
aquatic zone
riparian zone

current direction

single element of zone

border of stretch

It should be noted that the ecological structure assessment for the aquatic
zone is not represented by the saprobic index, but on structural variables
like longitudinal structure, curves etc. The saprobic index is used to assess
the biological water quality and is presented on separate maps.

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Biological Assessment 84
Annex 6. Ecological assessment method for Dutch running waters (STOWA-method)

..................................................................................

In 1992, the Foundation for Applied Research on Water Management

(STOWA) published the first assessment method based on macroinverte-
brates for running waters in the Netherlands, that can be considered to be of
an ecological type (Roos et al., 1991; STOWA, 1992).

Approach
In contrast with biological assessment methods that were devel-
oped earlier for Dutch streams and regulated streams (Moller Pillot, 1972;
Tolkamp, 1985; STORA, 1988) which were based on biological variables
only, the STOWA-method has been based on biological and physico-
chem-ical variables as well as environmental and management variables
(like type of maintenance, (hydro)morphology, land-use,
watermanagement) using multivariate analysis techniques. The large set
of existing data on water quality variables of disturbed and undisturbed
locations provided the basic information for method development. These
data for routine monitoring purposes were collected by local water
authority boards in The Netherlands during 1980-1988.

For Dutch streams, a typology scheme of 6 types of running waters has been
put forward. Yardsticks have been established for different aspects or
preferences of the macroinvertebrate communities like current, saprobity,
trophic state, sand, sediment/deposits, vegetation and three functional
feeding groups :scrapers, grazers and deposit feeders. Examination of
macroinvertebrate community yields a score on each yardstick. Afterwards
yardstick scores are compared with a 5-class quality scale.

The underlying basis of the yardsticks is the evaluation of ‘least’ polluted and
not regulated sites (in virtually total absence of natural reference sites)
combined with expert opinion and literature references with autecological
information. Thus the reference state is a virtual or abstract one.

Scope of application
The STOWA method is applicable for all Dutch running waters,
ranging from upstream parts of hill streams (maximum altitude 300 m) to
small rivers and regulated lowland streams. Following the same approach,
ecological assessment methods were developed for shallow lakes, ditches,
canals and stratifying lakes. In the National Aquatic Outlook in Dutch wa-ter
management, the STOWA method has been adapted for regional run-ning
waters, whereas the AMOEBA-approach will be applied for the main rivers
like Rhine and Meuse (see section 3.8).

Information requirements
Application of the method requires one or two macroinvertebrate
sampling events yearly, in spring and/or autumn. The advised sampling
quantity is a stretch of 5 meter using a standardised (30 cm wide) hand-
net in all microhabitats present. The most common level of identification is
family level, but in some orders genus or species level has to be reached.
No additional chemical sampling and analysis or collecting of environmen-
tal data is required. The ‘ecological’ component of the method lies in the
implicitly implemented abiotic factors rather than in evaluation of abiotic

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Biological Assessment 85
 variables. Furthermore, the assessment endpoints indicate which
abiotic factor are most disturbing for macroinvertebrate community.

Presentation method
The method results in its comprised form in five quality levels
ranging from below-lowest quality level to highest ecological quality
level. The assessment method results in distinct quality levels for 5
different (ag-gregated) ecological aspects, namely: velocity, saprobity,
trophy, substrate and feeding strategy. This is graphically constructed to
give an ‘ecological profile’.

................................
Figure A2
Presentation of ecological.

ecological profile

feeding strategy
substrate
trophy

saprobity

stream current

The colour coding is as follows (modified from original STOWA-report

for recent use in a national water quality survey):

colour quality level

......... .......................
dark blue highest quality level
light blue almost highest quality level
green middle quality level
yellow lowest quality level
red below lowest quality level

UN/ECE Task Force on Monitoring and Assessment

Biological Assessment 86