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Sampling techniques and inter-surveyor variability as sources of uncertainty in Polish macrophyte metric for lake ecological status assessment

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Abstract

According to the Water Framework Directive, the results of the ecological status assessment should be accompanied with estimates of the level of confidence and precision of the determination. The Polish macrophyte-based method for lake assessment (Ecological State Macrophyte Index, ESMI) was tested for its uncertainty. The data from 12 lakes surveyed using four modifications of the sampling procedure, different numbers of transects and by two or three independent surveyors were analysed and the risk of misclassification was estimated. The choice of the sampling technique had no effect on abundance parameters (C max and %cover), but it affected significantly the taxonomic composition indices (H and J′). It did not influence, however, the final assessment result, since in all the methods used, the ESMI values were comparable and showed no significant differences of means. Although the mean ESMI values were statistically indifferent and gave the same assessment result irrespective of the number of transects surveyed, the lower the number of transects, the higher the SD value and the more uncertain the assessment result. The risk of misclassification of the 12 lakes varied from 0.5% to over 40% depending on the sampling standard deviation value and the proximity of the index observed value to the class boundary.

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Acknowledgements

The paper is a result of the project ‘Development and validation of methods for integrated assessment of ecological status of rivers and lakes to support river basin management plans’ supported by a grant from Norway through the Norwegian Financial Mechanism within the frame of the Polish-Norwegian Research Fund (PNRF-220-AI-1/07).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Freshwater Assessment Methods and Monitoring, Institute of Environmental Protection - National Research Institute, Kolektorska 4, 01-692, Warszawa, Poland

    Agnieszka Kolada

  2. Department of Botany and Nature Protection, University of Warmia and Mazury, Plac Łódzki 1, 10-727, Olsztyn-Kortowo, Poland

    Hanna Ciecierska, Joanna Ruszczyńska & Piotr Dynowski

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  1. Agnieszka Kolada
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  2. Hanna Ciecierska
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  3. Joanna Ruszczyńska
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Correspondence to Agnieszka Kolada.

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Guest editors: M. T. Ferreira, M. O’Hare, K. Szoszkiewicz & S. Hellsten / Plants in Hydrosystems: From Functional Ecology to Weed Research

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Kolada, A., Ciecierska, H., Ruszczyńska, J. et al. Sampling techniques and inter-surveyor variability as sources of uncertainty in Polish macrophyte metric for lake ecological status assessment. Hydrobiologia 737, 265–279 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-013-1591-9

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