Journal
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
Volume 12, Issue 1, Pages 123-132Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.04.009
Keywords
Zoobenthos; Biotic indicators; Climate change; Eutrophication; Water framework directive; Pressure; Case study
Categories
Funding
- Estonian Ministry of Education and Research [SF0180013s08]
- Estonian Science Foundation [7813, 8254, 8807]
- Central Baltic Interreg IVa Program HISPARES
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Biological water quality indices are increasingly used for coastal water quality assessment. It is not clear, how are anthropogenic disturbances and climate variability captured in the dynamics of different indices. In this study, we evaluate simultaneous contributions of both eutrophication- and climate-related factors to the variability of a benthic invertebrate index ZKI. The index is adopted to classify the coastal brackish waters in the NE Baltic Sea. We found quite similar contributions of climate and eutrophication, which together described on average about 65% of the variability of the ZKI in the study area. These interactions are likely affected by local geomorphology, with the index values being less related to eutrophication on coarse bottoms and more to climate patterns on steep slopes. The relative contribution of eutrophication to index variability did not change across the pressure gradient according to the Baltic Sea Pressure Index. The results indicate that index assessments may easily become misinterpreted if the knowledge about the other sources of variability is missing and advise to account for climatic and hydrographic factors. (C) 2011 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