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Towards harmonization of ecological quality classification: establishing common grounds in European macrophyte assessment for rivers

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Abstract

Different national assessment concepts impede the harmonization of river quality classifications using macrophytes in Europe. This study describes a procedure to identify similarities between the national methods for ecological quality assessment of Austria, Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia), France, Germany, Great Britain and Poland. Based on an international data set covering three European stream types we identified sites commonly assessed as high status by most methods. A mean index derived from averaging the national assessment results per stream site was then correlated with the abundance of each macrophyte taxon. We defined common macrophyte indicator scores using these correlation coefficients. This enabled the description of type-specific macrophyte communities under near-natural and degraded conditions, and the development of a common metric (mICM) that was correlated with all national methods. The weaker relations of the Flemish and German methods were improved by adjusting national indicator scores of selected macrophyte taxa that deviated from the common indicator scores. The analysis of common high status sites provided mICM reference values. This study offers a general approach to harmonize the national assessment methods for biological elements of any water category.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the following colleagues that kindly provided macrophyte data: Karin Pall (Austria); Lenka Tajmrova (Czech Republic); Annette Baattrup-Pedersen (Denmark); Kris van Looy, Anik Schneiders, An Leyssen and Luc Denys (Flanders, Belgium); Christian Chauvin (France); Jochen Schaumburg and Christine Schranz (Germany); Jo-Ann Pitt (Great Britain); Normunds Kadikis (Latvia); Zofija Sinceviciene (Lithuania); Alain Dohet (Luxembourg); Hugo Coops and Roelf Pot (Netherlands); Agnieszka Kolada (Poland) and Daniel Galoux (Wallonia, Belgium). Christian Chauvin is also thanked for his collaboration in the preparatory steps of this study. Our study significantly benefitted from the worthwhile discussions held amongst the experts of the working group for river macrophyte intercalibration of the Central-Baltic Geographical Intercalibration Group. We acknowledge useful comments on the manuscript by the reviewers. This study was financially supported by the German Bund-/Länderarbeitsgemeinschaft Wasser, the Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research, and the Environment Agency of England and Wales.

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  1. Department of Applied Zoology/Hydrobiology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Sebastian Birk

  2. School of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, UK

    Nigel Willby

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Birk, S., Willby, N. Towards harmonization of ecological quality classification: establishing common grounds in European macrophyte assessment for rivers. Hydrobiologia 652, 149–163 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-010-0327-3

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