Report on Harmonisation of freshwater biological methods

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RIVER BIOLOGICAL QUALITY ELEMENT: PHYTOBENTHOS46. The overview of the river phytobenthos monitoring systems includes theapproaches of 15 countries. The phytobenthos community includes diatom and nondiatomgroups. However, most of the developed methods, especially in monitoringprograms are based only on the diatom group. Only one country was found to have amonitoring programme covering both diatom and non-diatom groups, while anotherhas a new assessment method under development that includes both groups.47. The sampling procedure is based in the European Norms EN 13946 (2003) Waterquality: Guidance standard for the routine sampling and pretreatment of benthicdiatoms for rivers for water quality assessment and/or in national methodologicalguidelines. Some countries, for example Germany and the United Kingdom use therecommendations of Kelly et al. (1998).48. Both documents only concern diatoms, but a working document for a proposednew European Standard is in preparation which includes algal groups other thandiatoms (cyanobacteria, green algae, red algae, etc.).49. A recent draft summarising the methods using benthic algae to assess waterquality in running water concluded that the main processes in use for routine samplingare similar, only details that depend on current velocity and dominating type ofavailable substratum may vary (CEN TC230 N68).50. The available information shows that scraping with a brush from the naturalsubstrates (stones) is the most common method. Quantitative sampling is performedin some cases, using a fixed surface area for sampling that varies between 9cm 2 and100cm 2 . Artificial subtracts are only used by 2 countries.51. Concerning the sampling habitat, 6 methodologies are multihabitat, 6 are singlehabitat related with hard subtracts (cobbles or stones) and 3 did not answer. Thesedifferent procedures do not allow comparability between the results as they reflectdifferent ecological situations.52. The sampling frequency for phytobenthos monitoring varies from annually toevery 3 or 4 years. The level of taxonomic resolution used is the species or speciesgroups. Only one country uses higher taxonomic levels, which varies from species tofamily or higher.14
53. The identification and enumeration of relative proportions of diatom taxa is basedon a European Standard EN 14407 (2004) Water quality: Guidance standard for theidentification, enumeration and interpretation of benthic diatom samples fromrunning water. Some countries use the OMNIDIA software for taxonomicidentification (Lecointe et al., 1993), which allows the calculation of a great numberof diatom indices and contains a systematic and an ecological database. Consultationof other literature is also recommended for the algal identification, like floras,identification guides and iconographs appropriated to the habitats and geographicregion under consideration.54. The recording of abundance is usually expressed as the number of cells per taxonper sample on occasions using abundance classes. Relative coverage of the river bedis also mentioned by one country.55. Three different categories of assessment methods were identified in this review:biotic indices, assemblage/community assessment and multimetric indices.Bioticindices are the most common assessment method including 5 different approaches allbased in diatom assemblages, applied to 9 countries. Only one country is usingassemblage/community assessment (Austria) and two are using multimetric indicesEstonia and Germany). The Biological Diatom Index’ (IBD- Indice BiologiqueDiatomées; AFNOR, 2000) is the only standardized method applied on a nationallevel.RIVER BIOLOGICAL QUALITY ELEMENT: MACROPHYTES56. Macrophytes are monitored in ten countries of the European Union also includingNorway. All methods comprise the investigation of watercourse vegetation by meansof regular visual from the banks or by wading in the stream to record the taxonomiccomposition and abundance of water plants. Assessment of the ecological quality ofwatercourses is done by five different schemes. Recently 3 countries have developedmacrophyte methods to meet the requirements of the WFD.57. Sampling area differs between individual methods: separate transects of 0.25 x0.25 m² are sampled, survey an area of at least 100 m², other schemes prescribe theinvestigation of stream reaches of 100 m or 500 m. Only two countries follow thestandard EN 14184:2003 Water quality: Guidance standard for the surveying ofaquatic macrophytes in running waters.15
Page 1 and 2: Institute for Environment and Susta
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTSBackground and purpose of t
Page 5 and 6: Background and purpose of the docum
Page 7 and 8: States and candidate countries. Inf
Page 9 and 10: classification, each of these being
Page 11 and 12: BIOLOGICAL QUALITY ELEMENT: PHYTOPL
Page 13: indicators, species lists, frequenc
Page 17 and 18: 64. In general, this technique is t
Page 19 and 20: RIVER BIOLOGICAL QUALITY ELEMENT: F
Page 21 and 22: 84. The development of specific sta
Page 23 and 24: practice guides for identification
Page 25 and 26: 100. The information received from
Page 27 and 28: Evaluation of the suitability of cu
Page 29 and 30: group should update its primary fin
Page 31 and 32: ReferencesAFNOR (Association Franç
Page 33 and 34: EN ISO 8689-2 Water quality - Biolo
Page 35 and 36: Lazaridou-Dimitriadou, M., C. Kouko
Page 37 and 38: Shannon, C.E. and W. Weaver, 1949.
Page 39: Annex I: Composition of the Geograp
Page 43 and 44: Annex III: River biological assessm
Page 45 and 46: Annex IV: Analysis of lake biologic
Page 47 and 48: Number of sampling stations10080%60
Page 49 and 50: IT 90% acetone spectrophotometricPT
Page 51 and 52: 10. The sampling depth and volume s
Page 53 and 54: PTESFIIE5667-2/98 Romanianstandardi
Page 55 and 56: Sampling stations%1008060402001 2-1
Page 57 and 58: MACROPHYTES16. The aquatic Macrophy
Page 59 and 60: Plants sampled per GIG1008060%40Eme
Page 61 and 62: NO qualitativ method species number
Page 63 and 64: indicators, species lists, frequenc
Page 65 and 66:
26. The sampling frequency is varia
Page 67:
CEN/TC 230/WG 2/ TG 4 N28, 2 nd wor
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programs are based only on the diat
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21. Some countries like France, Est
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Table 1. European methods for monit
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countries also covers Non-EU Member
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49. The Danish Stream Fauna Index i
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Hungary58. Since 2002 a modificatio
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Acidification Index, based on the s
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Identification is predominantly to
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size of the net range between 250 t
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water bug genus (Aphelocheirus) and
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Table 5. Common abundance classific
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108. Process Assessment focuses on
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Austria120. MuLFA: Ecological Integ
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Sweden126. Swedish fish Index: Appe
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ut comparisons have been made with
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seasons for sampling are summer and
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102
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Consultation open to ECOSTAT &inter
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Table 1. List of European standards
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108
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development of typologySweden Yes,
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one or other option depends on the
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114
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• An integrated holistic evaluati
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• Phytoplankton: Yes; Clorophyll
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• Macroalgae: No• Benthic inver
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• Macrophytes: No• Macroalgae:
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Mission of the JRCThe mission of th
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Report on Harmonisation of freshwater biological methods

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