The relationship between concurrently measured SASS (South African Scoring System) and turbidity data archived in the South African River Health Programme’s Rivers Database

Abstract

The need for monitoring the biological impacts of instream sediments has long been recognised, yet robust and scientifically defensible tools for doing so are still in the early stages of development because of the difficulties experienced by researchers in characterising the complicated mechanisms of biological effect elicited by sediment particles. Biological monitoring is one such tool, and this paper reports on the initial stages of a study to determine the most applicable approach for measuring the effects of instream sediments on aquatic macroinvertebrates in the South African context. In this first instance, the suitability of the rapid macroinvertebrate biomonitoring tool (the South African Scoring System) was investigated by determining the extent of the correlation between concurrently measured SASS metrics and turbidity data collected for the South African River Health Programme.

Authors

Categories