Deliverable D4. 4-4: Report summarising the definition of reference conditions using predictive models for ecological endpoints for fish in transitional waters

摘要: In Europe, the Water Framework Directive (WFD; Directive 2000/60/EC (European Council 2000)) aims at reaching good ecological status for surface waterbodies by 2015. Consequently European countries are developing methods based on biological (phytoplankton, macroalgae, angiosperms, macrobenthos and fishes), hydromorphological and physico-chemical quality elements for the ecological assessment and monitoring of rivers, lakes and coastal and transitional waters. In these methods, the value of ecological indicators are transformed into ecological status by comparison to the so called “reference conditions”, ie the conditions of the indicator in pristine areas (absence of human pressure and assumed to present the highest conservation status). Hence, setting adequate reference conditions is clearly crucial for the sound assessment of ecological status (Borja et al. 2012). The European Framework 7 project WISER is supporting the implementation of the WFD by testing and complementing existing assessment schemes. The development of suitable methods or the improvement of existing methods for the definitions of accurate reference conditions is one aim of WISER. The present work focuses on fish-based quality indicators for estuaries and lagoons (transitional waters under WFD terminology). Fish are known to be useful ecological indicators as they present multiple advantages for a high-level quality integration of ecological quality features in bioassessment (Karr 1981). However fish assemblages highly depend on natural features, both temporal and geographical, at small and large scale. This is especially true in transitional …