Application of the Benthic Ecosystem Quality Index 2 to benthos in Dutch transitional and coastal waters

摘要: The Benthic Ecosystem Quality Index 2 (BEQI2) is the Dutch multi-metric index (MMI) for assessing status and trend of benthic invertebrates in transitional coastal waters Water Framework Directive (WFD). It contains same indicators, i.e. species richness, Shannon AMBI, as multivariate m-AMBI. latter MMI has been adopted by several European countries context WFD implementation. In contrast to m-AMBI, BEQI2 calculation procedure strongly simplified consists two steps, separate indicator values are normalized using their long-term reference resulting three Ecological Ratios (EQRs), which subsequently averaged give one value. Using this method only small numbers samples need be analysed benthos laboratories annually, without necessity co-analyse a larger historical dataset. EQR appeared correlate quantitatively very well with m-AMBI values. addition, data pooling added tool enables core (0.01–0.025 m2) into standardized pools 0.1 m2 order meet requirements AMBI obtain comparable Furthermore, automatically efficiently converts synonym names names. applied all monitored Rijkswaterstaat period 1991–2010 salt lakes these results reported here first time. Reference richness (99 percentile values) (1 were estimated water body–ecotopes discussed. bodies discussed view natural human pressures. pressure sensitivity sewage dredging/dumping, via state variables oxygen suspended matter respectively, was demonstrated.