Abstract
Development of a new tool for fish-based river ecological status assessment in Poland (EFI+IBI_PL)
Highlights
Fish-based indices for evaluation of river ecosystem quality have been used since the 1980s, when the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) was first introduced
Assigning the eastern part of Vistula River catchment, as well as small parts of the Nemunas and Pregolya rivers catchments located in Poland (Fig. 1), to the Central Plains Ecoregion—in order to avoid the division of one large river catchment between two ecoregions (Central Plains and Eastern Plains)
First analysis indicates the consistence of classification for 77% of sites to high/good and below good ecological status by the European Fish Index (EFI)+PL/IBI_PL method and pressure index
Summary
Fish-based indices for evaluation of river ecosystem quality have been used since the 1980s, when the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) was first introduced. The recently designed tool for fish-based assessment of ecological status (EFI+IBI_PL) applied in river monitoring in Poland is presented in this paper. The new European Fish Index EFI+ is a multimetric tool consisting of two specific indices, each with two metrics developed separately for salmonid- and cyprinid-river zones. Those metrics were used in the European intercalibration process to validate national methods. The results of a two-years monitoring program show that the combination of modified EFI+ and IBI methods can be applied as a tool for river ecological status assessment in Poland, some further method modifications are needed
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