Indicators of Ecological Condition for Aquatic Systems

The goal of this research is to support the Office of Water’s goals under the Clean Water Act, address the specific recommendations of the National Research Council for integrated watershed research, and contribute to the USEPA's "Environmental Indicators Initiative" to improve the Agency's ability to report on the status of and trends in environmental conditions and their impacts on the nation's natural resources. This work supports research to characterize the condition of aquatic resources and responses of aquatic assemblages and ecosystem processes to anthropogenic disturbance. These methods and indicators will be applied at multiple spatial and temporal scales. They will be evaluated for their statistical properties and their ability to detect specific stressors, mixtures, landscape and riparian measures of watershed disturbance, and early indicators of restoration and recovery.

Related Links

• Methods to Diagnose Causes of Biological Impairment - description of research.

The objective of this research is to develop methods and indicators that are useful for evaluating the condition of aquatic communities, for assessing the restoration of aquatic communities in response to mitigation and best management practices, and for determining the exposure of aquatic communities to different classes of stressors (i.e., pesticides, sedimentation, habitat alteration).

• Large River Indicators
• Biological Indicators, Methods and Assessment Techniques for Use in Headwater Intermittent Streams

• Biological Indicators: Tools for Monitoring and Assessment
• Development of a Method for Deriving Pollution Tolerance Values
• Draft Statistical Guidance Document for Developing Indicators for Rivers and Streams
• Development of Large River Bioassessment Protocols (LRBPs)
• Development of Large River Bioassessment Protocols (LRBP) for Macroinvertebrate Assemblages
• Developing Monitoring Tools for Headwater Intermittent Streams
• Development of Rapid Functional Assessment Methods for Headwater Streams
• Measuring the Influence of Headwater Streams Using Geostatistical Tools

• Field Operations Manual for Assessing the Hydrologic Permanence and Ecological Condition of Headwater Streams. The purposes of this manual are to: 1) document procedures that were developed and used by EERD for the assessment of the physical and biological characteristics of headwater streams; and 2) provide a catalog of procedures to other groups with an interest in headwater stream assessment. (EPA 600/R-06/126, October 2006)
• Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program: Great River Ecosystems, Field Operations Manual. - This manual describes procedures for collecting samples and field measurements for biotic assemblages and abiotic characteristics of the Great Rivers of the Central Basin of the United States: the Missouri, Upper Mississippi, and Ohio Rivers. In addition to the technical and logistic aspects of field operations, this manual emphasizes health and safety considerations, data quality assurance (QA), and information management (IM). Not included in this manual are laboratory protocols, sample-design details, or protocols for data analysis or interpretation. (EPA/620/R-06/002, February 2006)
• A Review of Biological Assessment Tools and Biocriteria for Streams and Rivers in New England States (PDF, 124 pp., 1.7 MB) - This EPA report serves as a detailed description of the biological assessment programs for wadeable streams and rivers within U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Region 1 states (i.e., Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont). Specifically, this report concentrates on the target assemblages (e.g., benthic macroinvertebrates, periphyton, and/or fish) and the specific methods used by each state to determine whether biocriteria set for aquatic life use (ALU) are met in wadeable streams and rivers. (EPA/600/R-04/168, October 2004)