Journal
MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN
Volume 66, Issue 1-2, Pages 7-16Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.10.005
Keywords
Phytoplankton; Community composition; Eutrophication; Transitional and coastal waters; Quality assessment; European directives
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Several legislations worldwide require assessing the health status of marine ecosystems. In Europe, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) demand the evaluation of the status with the overall objective of achieving at least Good Status, by 2015 and 2020, respectively. For this purpose, Member States are required to evaluate different biological, physico-chemical and hydro-morphological quality elements (WFD), or qualitative descriptors (MSFD). The assessments of both, the phytoplankton element and the eutrophication descriptor should include several attributes, namely phytoplankton biomass, composition, abundance and blooms. However, few composition-based indicators have been proposed. Principally, phytoplankton still relies on chlorophyll-a concentration measurements, mainly due to the high cost of collecting information on this element and the difficulties establishing significant pressure-impact relationships. This investigation describes the difficulties in the development of a phytoplankton community composition indicator, the state of the art and the main challenges for the future. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available