Reference conditions in lowland rivers (WFD): coordination of strategy, sampling methods, laboratory methods and development of a common predictive system in the Baltic area
The European lowland is intensively used by man (agriculture, urbanisation). Nearly all lowland streams have been physically changed (regulation, weed-cutting) and eutrophication together with organic pollution have resulted in moderate, poor or bad water quality. Together, these human impacts have resulted in reduced biodiversity of most streams.
The Water Framework Directive (WFD) sets the scene on how to handle these challenges. Basically, further degradation must be prevented and if necessary improvements have to be made so that environmental quality at least have to fulfill good ecological quality. Ecological quality has to be defined in relation to the undisturbed (reference) state. This is a challenge in many parts of
Basically, the climate, topography and geology are very much alike in the European lowlands around the
The idea with this common Nordic / Baltic project is to select a common reference network to be used by all the countries, since some of the countries in general have more undisturbed streams/rivers than other countries.
The aim of the project is then to build a database containing macroinvertebrate faunalists and background information from all reference streams and rivers in the Baltic lowland area. Existing data will be collected from the participating countries national monitoring programmes. This information will be used to develop a predictive model for the macroinvertebrate fauna in the undisturbed (reference) situation.
The proposed project is an necessary starting point for the ecological classification that have to be made in each country. When the predictive model has been made and the reference state been described each country can work up their own ecological classification according to the common WFD guidelines and the common reference network as well as their national classification systems.