What is it about?
This paper reports the assessment of the ecological integrity of streams in Bregalnica River Basin with emphasis on river Bregalnica as the biggest and most important watercourse in Eastern Macedonia. The results have principally been derived from remote sensing data and set up in a model build up on Watershed Habitat Evaluation and Stream Integrity Protocol (WHEBIP). WHEBIP effectiveness in predicting ecological integrity of streams has been assessed by correlation analyses derived upon data on macroinvertebrate biotic indices and physico-chemical parameters on 35 localities throughout the basin. The statistical analyses confirmed the capacity of WHEBIP to predict stream site-specific features with great accuracy in the case of Bregalnica.
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Why is it important?
The study promotes applicability of stream integrity assessment tools in setting priorities for integrated watershed management in vast watersheds.
Perspectives
I started working on this article cause I was intrigued of the result of using basin landscape features as indicators of river health. Though because of lack of field data the final project output has stalled for a few years, I had fun working on the subject because of its interdisciplinary nature and cause the co-authors are my friends and dear colleagues. The most important is that the project is about a watershed where there are ongoing conservation efforts which makes it applicable in guiding the selection of areas for conservation and management in the watershed. The results are also meant to be used as a reference to guide site-specific research and encourage the freshwater ecologists in the region to follow with further calibration and modification of the macroinvertebrate indices indicator lists. I do hope that this paper will encourage similar studies in the wider region of South-East Europe.
Daniela Jovanovska
Staffordshire University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Applicability of the ‘Watershed Habitat Evaluation and Stream Integrity Protocol’ (WHEBIP) in assessment of the stream integrity in Bregalnica River Basin, International Journal of River Basin Management, October 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/15715124.2018.1533558.
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