[en] Macrophytes are among the major groups of organisms that the Water Framework Directive (WFD) recommends should be used in assessing the status of natural lakes. The use of macrophytes in reservoir monitoring is still limited and further studies are needed on their inter-calibration and sources of variation. Many status assessment methods based on macrophyte communities have been defined for lakes. Nevertheless, few of them have been tested for reservoirs. The purpose of the study is to highlight the limitations of using macrophytes to assess reservoir status according to the Water Framework Directive.
An assessment of macrophyte composition and abundance and of water quality was carried out in nine Walloon reservoirs between 2010 and 2012. The main limitations of the macrophyte approach for assessing these reservoirs were: i) geographical features; ii) physical variables; iii) lack of ecological information on the various macrophytic groups, such as helophytes, algae and mosses. We used two assessment methods to test the relevance of using macrophyte communities to assess reservoir status: the Flanders (Belgium) method (BE-FL method) and the United Kingdom method (UK method). The relationships between macrophyte metrics for both methods and nutrient enrichment were examined. Highly significant correlations were found between the chemical variables O-P [mg P/l]), Total P (µg P/l), Conductivity (µS/cm) and the trophic UK-metric (Lake Macrophyte Nutrient) (LMNI), as well as between such variables and the abundance of Bl-FL "disturbance indicators" metric(V). The UK "group of macrophyte species" metric provided limited information on the quality or degrees of degradation in the environment from which the sample was taken.
Research Center/Unit :
DEMNA
Disciplines :
Environmental sciences & ecology
Author, co-author :
Sossey Alaoui, Khadija ; Université de Liège - ULiège > DER Sc. et gest. de l'environnement (Arlon Campus Environ.) > DER Sc. et gest. de l'environnement (Arlon Campus Environ.)
Galoux, Daniel
Rosillon, Francis ; Université de Liège - ULiège > DER Sc. et gest. de l'environnement (Arlon Campus Environ.) > DER Sc. et gest. de l'environnement (Arlon Campus Environ.)
Language :
English
Title :
Macrophytes: Limitations of Using Them to Assess Reservoir Status According to the Water Framework Directive
Publication date :
December 2013
Journal title :
International Journal of Water Sciences
ISSN :
1848-929X
Publisher :
InTech, Rijeka, Croatia
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Name of the research project :
L’étude de la biodiversité des cours d'eau et des réservoirs de barrage wallons et l'évaluation de leur qualité
This website uses cookies to improve user experience. Read more
Save & Close
Accept all
Decline all
Show detailsHide details
Cookie declaration
About cookies
Strictly necessary
Performance
Strictly necessary cookies allow core website functionality such as user login and account management. The website cannot be used properly without strictly necessary cookies.
This cookie is used by Cookie-Script.com service to remember visitor cookie consent preferences. It is necessary for Cookie-Script.com cookie banner to work properly.
Performance cookies are used to see how visitors use the website, eg. analytics cookies. Those cookies cannot be used to directly identify a certain visitor.
Used to store the attribution information, the referrer initially used to visit the website
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. Websites use cookies to help users navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. Cookies that are required for the website to operate properly are allowed to be set without your permission. All other cookies need to be approved before they can be set in the browser.
You can change your consent to cookie usage at any time on our Privacy Policy page.