macroinvertebrati acquatici e direttiva 2000/60/ec (wfd) - IRSA - Cnr

ICMeasy performs Intercalibration Common Metrics
(ICMs) calculations for:
• STAR_ICMi (2005 version: Buffagni et al., 2005;
2006) [= Central/Baltic, official Mediterranean
and Nordic GIGs ICMs]
• Alpine GIG ICMi (Alp_ICMs, qualitative; april06
version)
• Eastern Continental GIG ICMi (EaC_ICMs,
qualitative, semi-quantitative; april06 version)
• informal Mediterranean GIG ICMi (Med_ICMs,
qualitative; April 2006 version)
ICMeasy is organized in three main sections:
START, RESULTS and GRAPHS which correspond
to three software windows:
• The START section is designed to define
calculation options and import data. It also
supports an inspection facility to perform
taxonomical adjustments, if needed.
• The RESULTS section shows a summary of IC
indices calculation and the classification of
analyzed samples.
• The GRAPHS window graphically illustrates the
relationship between IC indices and a set of three
‘Test variables’, which can be entered by the
user.
Data to run ICM easy must be stored in a file in MS-
DOS format (txt), which is also the format of the
Output file. An intermediate file is created by the
software if the taxa list present in the original input
file needs to be adjusted in order to be recognized.
ICMeasy has been developed for Windows XP and
has not been tested on other operating systems.
INTERCALIBRATION METRICS AND INDICES
CALCULATED BY THE ICMEASY SOFTWARE
The ICMeasy software calculates four sets of ICM
biological metrics and four ICM indices. The different
sets of metrics and indices are calculated
accordingly to the options selected prior to importing
the data file. For each GIG, the metrics included in
the ICMi are reported below. Where there was no
agreement within a GIG about using quantitative or
qualitative data or when both possibilities were
considered, only the calculation of the qualitative
ICMi is provided for that GIG (i.e. Med and Alpine
GIGs).
Central/Baltic, Mediterranean and Nordic GIGs
STAR_ICMs (quantitative):
Total Number of Families
Number of EPT Families
ASPT
Notiziario dei Metodi Analitici
102
n. 1 (2007)
Abundance of selected Families
(log(SelEPTD+1))
1-GOLD
Shannon Diversity.
Eastern/Continental_ICMs (quantitative):
Total Number of Families
ASPT
Abundance of EPT Families/Total Abundance
Degradations Index.
Alpine_ICMs (qualitative):
Total Number of Families
Number of EPT Families / Total Number of
Families
Iberian ASPT
Number of selected sensitive Families
(presence).
For the purpose of comparison only (i.e. it is not an
official IC index), the informal Mediterranean_ICMs
(qualitative) ald relative metrics were included as
well in the calculations. This is mainly due to the fact
that the decision to adopt the STAR_ICMs
(quantitative) as the official method for the
Mediterranean GIG rivers was taken later than for
the other GIGs. The (informal) Mediterranean_ICMs
(qualitative) are:
Total Number of Families
Number of EPT Families
Iberian ASPT
Number of Selected Families of ETD / Total
Number of Families.
No details on metrics and their weighting within each
ICMi are provided here, because it goes beyond the
aims of the present paper.
GETTING STARTED (FAST PROCEDURE)
1. Select a GIG
2. Select a River Type
3. Press OK
4. Open an input file
5. If any test variable is included in the input file,
optionally tick the check-boxes “Biological” and/or
set the minimum value for normalisation or tick
the check-boxes “Observed Min”
6. Press OK
7. Check the results: in the table the STAR-ICM
index, the GIG-ICM index and the normalised
values of test variables for each sample are
listed. A summary of input data is presented on
the right with a small graph showing the quality
class percentages of the samples.