DEVELOPING MULTIMETRIC INDICES FOR AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS INTEGRITY BIOASSESSMENT

Abstract

Multimetric indices are nowadays the most popular tool for assessing biological integrity of aquatic ecosystems, being broadly employed in biomonitoring programs in USA, Germany, France, and Austria. The greatest advantage of this approach is its capability of integring different aspects of a given biological community in order to return a general classifi cation of the degree of disturbance without loss of individual metrical information. The design of this type of index is based on comparing between selected regions devoid of human infl uence -- taken as references -- with areas under strong human infl uence. The most common ways of developing multimetric indices are herein explained, and the series of necessary steps are objectively explained.