TYPE AND SITE SPECIFIC APPROACH - TWO WAYS OF DEFINING REFERENCE CONDITIONS FOR CZECH STREAMS: PROS AND CONS
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2005 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Symposium River Bottom VI. Book of Abstracts |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Hydrology and limnology |
| Keywords | PERLA; RIVPACS; benthic macroinvertebrates; type-specific; site-specific; predictive modelling |
| Description | Assessment of the ecological quality of water bodies as required under the European Water Framework Directive is based on the comparison of reference and observed status. The Directive requires the definition of type-specific reference conditions for water bodies and offers two systems for deriving this typology: system A and system B, both based on abiotic descriptors. The site-specific approaches are based on a classification of benthic macro-invertebrate assemblages followed by discriminant analysis of environmental variables. A test site is then probabilistically assigned to one or more classification groups and a site-specific reference fauna is derived. Correspondence between the WFD physical typologies and a site-specific approach was investigated in the Czech Republic using PERLA (the site-specific model for the benthic macro-invertebrate assemblages). The discriminant strength of groups obtained by the site-specific model was better than those obtained by both the system A and system B typologies. We conclude that the site-specific approach is a better tool for defining reference conditions than the WFD physical typologies. |
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