Bioassessment Links
General
Sites
Technical
Documents
Water
Management Districts
Miscellanea
Biological
Indicators of Watershed Health
EPA's website providing basic information on
bioassessment with links to the technical documents below
(or order
paper copies of EPA bioassessment and biocriteria
guidance documents online). This site presents
the fundamentals of bioassessment, including why we use
biological indicators to assesses water quality and
watershed health, through a combination of linked text
and photos. Maps illustrating trends
are used to explain how we use biological data to track
changes in water quality.
EPA’s Bioassessment and Biocriteria Homepage
Florida
LAKEWATCH
Florida LAKEWATCH is a volunteer citizen lake monitoring
program that facilitates "hands-on" citizen
participation in the management of Florida lakes through
monthly monitoring activities. Coordinated through the
University of Florida's Institute of Food and
Agricultural Sciences/Department of Fisheries and Aquatic
Sciences, the program has been in existence since 1986.
LAKEWATCH is one of the largest lake monitoring programs
in the nation with over 1800 trained citizens monitoring
600+ lakes, in more than 40 counties.
MasterBug
Theater
Presents an easy to understand slide show on juvenile
aquatic insects and their usefulness as indicators of
water quality.
Stream
Study
A site developed by the Save Our Streams project of the
Izaak Walton League of America.
Provides a method to determine the water quality of a
stream based on the collection and identification of
stream-bottom macroinvertebrates. Includes an interactive
key as well as information on why macroinvertebrates are
useful in assessing water quality.
Surf
Your Watershed
Florida has 54 watersheds, which one do you live in?
Access an environmental profile of your watershed from
the EPA. This site provides an online catalog of
environmental links to air and water quality, landuse
information and environmental action groups that can be
located by geography.
Know
your Watershed
This site by CTIC serves as a watershed information
clearinghouse- providing videos, games, FAQs, and regional
contact information.
River
at a Glance
Check out weekly water quality on the St Johns River from
the FDEP Northeast District Office.
Hillsborough
County Watershed Atlas
The Hillsborough County Water Resources Atlas is designed to
provide citizens, scientists, professionals, and planners with
comprehensive and current water quality, hydrologic, and
ecological data, as well as information about recreational
opportunities and a library of scientific and educational
materials on water resource issues.
ITIS-
Integrated Taxonomic Information Service
A partnership of U.S., Canadian, and Mexican agencies,
other organizations, and taxonomic specialists
cooperating on the development of an on-line,
scientifically credible, list of biological names
focusing on the biota of North America. ITIS is also a
participating member of Species 2000, an international
project indexing the world's known species.
...from
the DEP:
Laboratory
Standard Operating Procedures
...from
the EPA:
(access this site to order
paper copies of EPA bioassessment and biocriteria
guidance documents online.)
Factsheet:
Biological Criteria Produced by the
EPA, this factsheet provides a brief introduction to the
concepts of bioassessment
Biological
Criteria: National Program Guidance for Surface Waters
A document from the EPA providing guidance for
development and implementation of narrative biological
criteria by states, as directed by priorities established
in the FY 1991 Agency Operating Guidance.
EPA's
"Rapid Bioassessment Protocols For Use in Streams
and Rivers"
A document produced by the EPA to provide States and
local water quality monitoring agencies with a practical
technical reference for conducting cost-effective
biological assessments of lotic systems.
...
from other sources:
Stream
Corridor Restoration: Principles, Practices, and
Processes
This document is the result of a cooperative effort among
fifteen Federal agencies and partners to produce a common
reference on stream corridor restoration in response to a
growing national and international public interest in
restoring stream corridors. It encapsulates the
rapidly expanding body of knowledge related to stream
corridors and their restoration while presenting the full
range of possibilities facing restoration practitioners,
including "no-action" or passive approaches,
partial intervention for assisted recovery, and
substantial intervention for managed recovery. (As this
document is very large, ~900 pages, it is available as a
pdf file, and requires a pdf viewer, such as Adobe
Acrobat Reader to be viewed or printed. Acrobat
Reader can be obtained free by accessing
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html)
Methods
for Characterizing Stream Habitat as Part of the National
Water Quality Assessment Program
USGS Open File Report 93-408
Stream
Visual Assessment Protocol
This document, from the USDA, presents an easy-to-use
assessment protocol to evaluate the condition of aquatic
ecosystems associated with streams. The protocol does not
require expertise in aquatic biology or extensive
training. Least-impacted reference sites are used to
provide a standard of comparison.
Water
Words Dictionary Index
A compilation of technical water, water quality,
environmental, and water-related terms produced by the Nevada
Division of Water Resources, Department of Conservation and
Natural Resources.
Chironomidae
and Water Beetles of Florida
John Epler's web page presenting current information on
the taxonomy and distribution of these groups of insects
in Florida and elsewhere. Links to idenytification
keys and taxonomic updates.
Glossary
of Aquatic Habitat Terminology
The American Fisheries Society provides a summary of its
glossary which it proclaims to contain clear, concise
explanations for over 2,200 aquatic habitat terms,
including many terms from the disciplines of remote
sensing, meteorology, hydrology, hydraulics, and
geomorphology. The glossary was developed by the society
in an effort to encourage the consistent and
standard use of terminology used by workers who conduct
inventories and analyses of aquatic habitats.
Although the text is not available on the internet
itself, it can be ordered through the society's website.
Florida
Association of Benthologists
FAB is an organization formed to share expertise and
information on the use of aquatic community structures
and processes (quantity and quality of the biota) to
evaluate water quality conditions and ecosystem function.
This site has links to FABs meeting minutes and
newsletters, as well as notices of upcoming meetings.
North
American Benthological Society Home Page
Produced by NABS, an international scientific
organization whose purpose is to promote better
understanding of the biotic communities of lake and
stream bottoms and their role in aquatic ecosystems, this
site has links to the Society's journal and other
technical publications.
Florida
Lake Management Society (FLMS)
The mission of the Florida Lake Managemement Society is
to promote protection, enhancement, conservation,
restoration, and management of Florida's aquatic
resources; provide a forum for education and information
exchange; and advocate environmentally sound and
economically feaseble lake and aquatic resources
management for the citizens of Florida.
North
American Lake Management Society (FLMS)
NALMS is a non-profit, all-VOLUNTEER organization aiming
"to forge partnerships among citizens, scientists,
and professionals to foster the management and protection
of lakes and reservoirs for today and tomorrow."
Universities
Water Information Network - WETLIST
This site provides links to a variety of water-related
web sites and has a searchable database of water-related
documents available on the web.
Bureau
of Land Management - National Aquatic Monitoring Center
Provides processing of aquatic invertebrate samples for a
number of western states. This site
includes their lab protocols, as well as descriptions of
ongoing projects and publications.
Salmonweb
The home of volunteer biomonitoring in Washington state,
this site provides a variety of resources. Biomonitoring
publications available range field and lab sampling
protocols and quality assurance plans to documents
outlining the foundations of biological monitoring (what
is biological integrity, defining and measuring river
health, etc.) This site also provides information
on biomonitoring related videos, including one which
explains the concept of biological integrity and why
biological monitoring is an important tool for assessing
stream health. This site also provides unique
resources aimed at volunteer monitoring participants
including interactive maps of monitored sites which
both allow for access to site data and also enables
dynamic site location and data uploading by volunteers.
Oregon
Trout
This site distributes information for Oregon's
RiverKeeper program, a volunteer biomonitoring effort
involving concerned individuals and local communities
interested in the protection, restoration and enhancement
of wild, native fish in the Pacific Northwest.
RiverKeeper provides training on the principles of river
stewardship and acts as a support network for volunteer
monitoring in Oregon.
Xerces
Society - Aquatic Monitoring Program
Provides technical assistance on bioassessment techniques
and protocols, volunteer training in bioassessment
protocols, maintains a database of aquatic
macroinvertebrates found in northwestern states.
