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RESPONSE PATTERNS OF GREAT RIVER FISH ASSEMBLAGE METRICS TO OUTFALL EFFECTS FROM POINT SOURCE DISCHARGES
Citation:
Emery, E. B., F H. McCormick, AND T. P. Simon. RESPONSE PATTERNS OF GREAT RIVER FISH ASSEMBLAGE METRICS TO OUTFALL EFFECTS FROM POINT SOURCE DISCHARGES. Chapter 23, Biological Response Signatures: Indicator Patterns Using Aquatic Communities. CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL, , 481-493, (2002).
Impact/Purpose:
The goal of this research is to develop methods and indicators that are useful for evaluating the condition of aquatic communities, for assessing the restoration of aquatic communities in response to mitigation and best management practices, and for determining the exposure of aquatic communities to different classes of stressors (i.e., pesticides, sedimentation, habitat alteration).
Description:
Human disturbance alters key attributes of aquatic ecosystems such as water quality, habitat structure, hydrological regime, energy flow, and biological interactions. In great rivers, this is particularly evident because they are disproportionately degraded by habitat alteration and industrial and municipal discharges. Water quality degradation as a result of point and nonpoint source pollution further impacts the ecological integrity of large rivers such as the Ohio River. By examining patterns in the responses of fish assemblages to potential stressors associated with point source discharges, it may be possible to assess the extent to which pollution alters water quality and affects biotic integrity.
The index of biotic integrity (IBI) assesses the conditions of water bodies by direct evaluation of biological attributes. It integrates structural, ecological, trophic, and reproductive attributes of fish assemblages at multiple levels of organization. The IBI was originally developed for assessment of Midwestern warmwater streams and was modified for use in other regions and waters.
Emery and Thomas found that point source effects on biological communities of the Ohio River are limited to the immediate influence of the outfall. Typically, studies of the impacts of point source discharges to aquatic ecosystems have been limited to comparisons of the impacted area to an upstream, unimpaired reference condition. They described an approach of incrementally sampling outfalls that was intended to detect gradients of fish assemblage responses to effluents. This traveling zone (T-zone) approach was based on the computation of an IBI based on fish assemblage metrics from ten continuous 100-m segments. Data can be aggregated and metrics calculated to show incremental changes in response to the effects from point source discharges. These metrics can be evaluated individually or combined to form a multimetric index of biological integrity for the Ohio River. The purpose of this paper is to compare the responses of select metrics to three types of industrial and municipal wastewater discharges using data collected by the T-zone approach.