RT Journal Article
T1 Freshwater biodiversity loss in urbanised rivers
A1 Gutierrez Rial, David
A1 Soto González, Benedicto
A1 García Vázquez, David
A1 Méndez Martínez, Gonzalo
A1 Pombal Diego, Manuel Ángel
A1 Garrido González, Josefa
K1 2401.17 Invertebrados
AB Since the second half of the 20th century, when monitoring programmes were implemented as a measure to improve the water quality of rivers, numerous advantages have been achieved. one of the most remarkable advances was the integration of bioindicators as a suitable and quick tool to complement the assessment based on the evaluation of physical and chemical parameters. This paper evaluated which of the already used water quality indices based on macroinvertebrates would be more suitable to assess the ecological status of 6 rivers (Barxas, Deva, Tea, Manco, Louro and Furnia rivers) within the Mino ˜ River international basin (NW Spain and N Portugal) applying the methodology proposed by the Water Framework Directive (WFD). In addition, the relationship between the water quality and the land uses within a buffer zone of 100 along the watershed of each river was studied. Our findings demonstrate that the IBMWP (Iberian Biomonitoring Working Party) is the most suitable index to evaluate the water quality of rivers from this geographical zone. Nevertheless it is necessary to use other more sensitive index like EPT and PT indices to identify any potential pressures that might be concealed by IBMWP. The tributaries of the Mino ˜ River generally presented a good ecological status according to the IBMWP. Nevertheless, the Louro River had the lowest score for all the indices being the worst preserved among all within the basin. On the contrary Barxas, Deva and Furnia rivers showed the higher values. The results indicated that the most urbanised river was the Louro River (13 %) followed, to a lesser extent, by Manco River (7 %) and Tea River (2 %). Consequently, the Louro River had the worst water quality (poor quality) and a lessdiverse benthic macroinvertebrate community, in which more generalist taxa such as Chironomids, Ceratopogonids, or Crustaceans were found. On the other hand, the rivers with the best water quality were the Barxas, Deva, and Furnia, all of them with a negligible proportion of artificial cover surface (<1 %) within the delimited buffer zone. This would suggest a negative influence of the proportion of artificial areas over diversity and quality indices.
PB Ecological Indicators
SN 1470160X
YR 2023
FD 2023-12
LK http://hdl.handle.net/11093/5325
UL http://hdl.handle.net/11093/5325
LA eng
NO Ecological Indicators, 156, 111150 (2023)
NO Universidade de Vigo/CISUG
DS Investigo
RD 18-sep-2024