A hitchhiker's guide to European lake ecological assessment and intercalibration
- Year of publication
- 2015
- Journal
- Ecological Indicators
- Contributors
- Sandra Poikane, Sebastian Birk, Jürgen Böhmer, Laurence Carvalho, Caridad de Hoyos, Hubert Gassner, Seppo Hellsten, Martyn Kelly, Anne Lyche Solheim, Mikko Olin, Karin Pall, Geoff Phillips, Rob Portielje, David Ritterbusch, Leonard Sandin, Ann Kristin Schartau, Angelo G. Solimini, Marcel van den Berg, Georg Wolfram, Wouter van den Bund
Laurence Carvalho
Anne Lyche Solheim
Summary
The WaterFrameworkDirectiveisthefirstinternationallegislationtorequireEuropeancountriesto establish comparableecologicalassessmentschemesfortheirfreshwaters.Akeyelementinharmonising quality classificationwithinandbetweenEurope’sriverbasinsisan“Intercalibration”exercise,stipulated by theWFD,toensurethatthegoodstatusboundariesinallofthebiologicalassessmentmethodscorre- spond tosimilarlevelsofanthropogenicpressure.Inthisarticle,weprovideacomprehensiveoverview of thisinternationalcomparison,focusingontheassessmentschemesdevelopedforfreshwaterlakes. Out of82lakeecologicalassessmentmethodsreportedforthecomparison,62weresuccessfullyinter- calibrated andincludedintheECDecisiononintercalibration,withahighproportionofphytoplankton (18), macrophyte(17)andbenthicfauna(13)assessmentmethods.Allthelakeassessmentmethodsare reviewed inthisarticle,includingtheresultsofintercalibration.Furthermore,thecurrentgapsandway forward toreachconsistentmanagementobjectivesforEuropeanlakesarediscussed. © 2015TheAuthors.PublishedbyElsevierLtd.ThisisanopenaccessarticleundertheCCBY-NC-NDBenthic invertebrates Ecological assessment Europe Fish fauna Lakes Macrophytes Phytoplankton Water FrameworkDirective