Methodology development on aquatic environmental assessment

Abstract

The Water Framework Directive aims at reaching the good ecological status of the surface and ground water bodies (László et al. Microchem J 85(1):65-71, 2007). The paper deals with quality evaluation of waters with special focus on the water chemistry parameters as defined in the Water Framework Directive and pertaining legal regulations. The purpose of this paper is to devise a quantitative type of water quality assessment method which could provide rapid, accurate, and reliable information on the quality of the surface waters by using water chemistry parameters. Quality classes have been defined for every water chemistry parameter in light of the legal limit values of the water parameters. In addition to this, weight indices were calculated on the basis of the outcome of the paired comparison of water chemistry parameters and normalized matrix. This was followed by the parametric level analysis of the water chemistry parameters, and finally, the aquatic environment index (AEI) was calculated, which provided general information on the quality of water regarding the water chemistry parameters. The method was illustrated on Lake Balaton, Hungary in which case water samples taken from Balatonfüred City lake area were analyzed and evaluated with the method devised.

Does Lake Balaton affected by pollution? Assessment through surface water quality monitoring by using different assessment methods

“…The protocol of AEA method was devised by Németh et al (2017) . Five water quality classes and categories were used during the assessment of Aquatic Environment Index (AEI).…”

“…The methodology uses the physical–chemical parameters of surface water to assess and quantify the quality of any surface water body, based on the standards of Hungary ( MSZ, 2010 ), which is in harmony with the Water Framework Directive of European Union ( WFD, 2000 ). The following steps were employed to carry the sampling methodology accordingly: first, the typology of the water body was established, followed by the selection of the cluster of water quality class based on threshold values specified by the Hungarian National Standard ( MSZ, 2010 ) and then compared of a two-by-two strategy, followed by the aggregation of weighted indices obtained from the correlation of physical–chemical matrices and AEI ( Németh et al, 2017 ). The surface water quality categories can be ranked into five different classes, according to Németh et al (2017) from 1 to 5, simply based on the threshold values of physical–chemical water quality parameters, according to the Hungarian National Standard ( Table 1 ).…”

“…The methodology, which is deployed here in this study, uses the 2010 version of the Decree and all the threshold values are according to the 2010 standard. Environmental impact assessment (hereafter EIA) studies comprise the mechanisms that are employed to assess the relation between human activities and their impact on the environment, which aims the environmental protection, future improvements and sustainable development ( Németh et al, 2017 ). EIA represents a package of the well-defined procedures, which requires a thorough discussion.…”

“…The AEI methodology was developed for calculating the environmental impact index by employing only physical–chemical parameters of surface waters. The AEI methodology is considered a quantitative EIA method, since the basic development procedures follow the weighting, standardization and congruence of water chemistry parameters ( Németh et al 2017 ).…”

Informative Environment Qualifying Index

“…The following environmental elements were taken into consideration: Some EIA techniques, which were developed for the analyses of specific environmental elements, e.g. Németh et al provided a quantitative tool for bodies of surface water [23] to show changes in water quality of Lake Balaton, the largest natural shallow lake in Central Europe [24,25]. In the case of air pollution, the Air Quality Index (AQI) is a useful tool to improve public understanding and participation [26].…”