Ecological perspective on water quality goals

Karr, James R.; Dudley, Daniel R.

doi:10.1007/bf01866609

Cited by 779 publications

(425 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…In this article, we evaluated the relationships between ecological integrity and human cancer mortality in West Virginia, USA. Karr and Dudley (1981) defined ecological integrity as an ecosystem state that ''support[s] and maintain[s] a balanced, adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to that of natural habitats within a region.'' In practice, ecologists often quantify ecological integrity by sampling biological communities and calculating metrics that indicate known environmental quality gradients (Karr and Chu, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological Integrity of Streams Related to Human Cancer Mortality Rates

Hitt

Hendryx

2010

EcoHealth

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Assessments of ecological integrity have become commonplace for biological conservation, but their role for public health analysis remains largely unexplored. We tested the prediction that the ecological integrity of streams would provide an indicator of human cancer mortality rates in West Virginia, USA. We characterized ecological integrity using an index of benthic macroinvertebrate community structure (West Virginia Stream Condition Index, SCI) and quantified human cancer mortality rates using county-level data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Regression and spatial analyses revealed significant associations between ecological integrity and public health. SCI was negatively related to age-adjusted total cancer mortality per 100,000 people. Respiratory, digestive, urinary, and breast cancer rates increased with ecological disintegrity, but genital and oral cancer rates did not. Smoking, poverty, and urbanization were significantly related to total cancer mortality, but did not explain the observed relationships between ecological integrity and cancer. Coal mining was significantly associated with ecological disintegrity and higher cancer mortality.Spatial analyses also revealed cancer clusters that corresponded to areas of high coal mining intensity. Our results demonstrated significant relationships between ecological integrity and human cancer mortality in West Virginia, and suggested important effects of coal mining on ecological communities and public health.Assessments of ecological integrity therefore may contribute not only to monitoring goals for aquatic life, but also may provide valuable insights for human health and safety.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological Integrity of Streams Related to Human Cancer Mortality Rates

Hitt

Hendryx

2010

EcoHealth

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“…Data analyses were made using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 13. 3 1 mean of three replicates, 2 cumulative of three replicates, 3 three of the most abundant taxa …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some factors have been reported which are linked to river degradation. Physical and chemical factors may be related to biological changes [3]. Water quality may only partially reflect environmental impact [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of River Ecological Quality Using B-IBI (Dez River, Southwestern of Iran)

Rouzbahani¹,

zadehgan²,

Harirforoush³

2015

IJESD

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Abstract-The aim of this study is to develop a benthic index of biotic integrity (B-IBI) to help understand how the increasing anthropogenic pressure may impact the permanent Dez River in Iran. For this propose, 5 sampling stations with 4 replicates has been selected from January 2012 to June 2013. Also physiochemical parameters of water, grain size analysis and percentage total organic matter (TOM) of sediment was determined. We selected ten metrics for the final IBI. 19 species from 12 families of macrobenthose have been identified. The highest abundance was belong to Oligocheates with 80% and the lowest was belong to Gastropoda with 14.5%. The results of B-IBI showed that most sites were in fairly poor condition. These results suggest that the B-IBI may be a suitable method for assessing Dez river conditions and other rivers with same weathering and ecological conditions.

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“…Species richness, trophic composition, abundance and condition of fish community were assessed in the riverine wetland. Variables of IBI were divided into five categories including excellent (58-60), good (48-52), fair (40-46), poor (33-35), and very poor (20-25) (Karr and Dudley, 1981;Karr et al, 1986). The fish inventories in the past 50 years were extracted mainly from the investigation conducted by the aquatic institute of Henan Province in 2006, Fishery Resources in Yellow River System, and the fishery resources survey in the Sanmenxia (He, 1987;Zhang, 1990;Li and Lan, 1994;Wang, 2009).…”

Section: Fish Ibi Wqi and Spi Calculationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of fish index of biological integrity (FIBI) in the Sanmenxia Wetland with water quality implications

Zhang¹,

Shan²,

Ao³

2014

Journal of Environmental Sciences

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Long-term changes of fish biotic integrity in the Sanmenxia Wetland, North China, since the 1950s were assessed using the fish index of biological integrity (FIBI). The water and sediment quality was evaluated by the water quality index (WQI) and sediment pollution index (SPI). The results showed that FIBI continuously decreased from 46 to 20 during the past 5 decades, which indicated that the fish community state shifted from fair to very poor conditions, and damming by itself did not affect the fish biotic integrity. At the same time, WQI fell from 83 to 44.1, and SPI increased from 0.99 to 2.14 since the 1960s, resulting from fast regional socio-economic development and insufficient wastewater treatment. Correlation analysis suggested that water quality significantly affected biotic integrity (r = 0.867, p < 0.05) through direct effects on the fish community. As a representative example of many wetlands in North China, our study clearly demonstrated that the biological integrity was degraded, induced both by water quality deterioration and sediment pollution, further driven by the contradiction between rapid development of regional economy and lagging development of sewage treatment facilities, which were thought to be the main factor responsible for the degradation of biological integrity.

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Ecological perspective on water quality goals

Cited by 779 publications

References 18 publications

Ecological Integrity of Streams Related to Human Cancer Mortality Rates

Ecological Integrity of Streams Related to Human Cancer Mortality Rates

Assessment of River Ecological Quality Using B-IBI (Dez River, Southwestern of Iran)

Application of fish index of biological integrity (FIBI) in the Sanmenxia Wetland with water quality implications

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