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Water
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Biomonitoring of Water Quality
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Biomonitoring of Water Quality

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Quality and Contamination".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2019) | Viewed by 22229

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Fernando Cobo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Zoology, Genetics and Physical Anthropology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Campus Vida, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Spain
Interests: water quality biomonitoring; biodiversity and conservation of macrobenthos; freshwater and diadromous fishes; biological invasions; toxicity and control of freshwater cyanobacteria; taxonomy and biology of aquatic insects
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jesús R. Aboal

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Functional Biology, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain
Interests: environment; water quality; environmental analysisis; biomonitoring; environmental impact assesment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water is one of the most essential natural resources. Continental waters are affected by different anthropogenic activities that could lead to deterioration in water quality and also in ecological status. Managing water is essential for sustainable development worldwide, and the needs of people and ecosystems must also be balanced. Due to this serious environmental problem, modern societies, through legislation or environmental agencies, maintain programs for the monitoring of pollutants and their effects on the environment. Nowadays, the main tool used to assess water contamination is chemical monitoring, which provides information about the levels of different pollutants in the water column (e.g., heavy metals and organic compounds). Nevertheless, the data obtained in this approach reflect the concentration of pollutants at the time of sampling, but not episodic or intermittent pollution events. Furthermore, the information obtained by this method is restricted to the chemical composition of water, and it is difficult to infer this result to ecological impacts. On the other hand, no information about the biodisponibility and the ecological effects (from the biochemical to the ecosystem integration level) are provided by these traditional techniques. Furthermore, it is absolutely necessary to assess the toxicity, bioacumulation and biomagnification. To resolve these problems, various biological matrices such as algae, bryophytes, fishes and macro-invertebrates have been used to assess water quality. However, the protocols and the development of techniques based on the use of these living beings are still far from their establishment and standardization. For these reasons, this Special Issue will include contributions and advances on biomonitoring techniques of chemical parameters of inland waters, and techniques that allow monitoring changes in the composition, structure and function of the communities and ecosystems of epicontinental waters.

Dr. Fernando Cobo
Dr. Jesús R. Aboal
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • biomonitoring
  • bioconcentration
  • biotic indexes
  • community intengrity
  • pollution
  • contamination

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3016 KiB  
Article
Algae Growth Distribution and Key Prevention and Control Positions for the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project
by Jie Zhu, Xiaohui Lei, Jin Quan and Xia Yue
Water 2019, 11(9), 1851; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/w11091851 - 05 Sep 2019
Cited by 28 | Viewed by 5235
Abstract
The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MRP) is an important water supply for 20 large cities and 100 counties in Northern China. However, since 2016, the growth of large filamentous algae clusters has threatened the safety of the main canal [...] Read more.
The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MRP) is an important water supply for 20 large cities and 100 counties in Northern China. However, since 2016, the growth of large filamentous algae clusters has threatened the safety of the main canal water supply and water quality. In this study, a field investigation, monitoring, and hydrodynamic simulation were performed to analyze the hydrodynamic habitat conditions in areas with vigorous algae growth and establish a relationship between the hydrodynamic habitat conditions of the main canal and the growth, distribution, and correlation of macrobenthic algae in the main canal. The results showed that: (1) algae zones in the main canal are more likely to appear along curves, and the largest algal zone was at the front of the large curved section; (2) the length of the algae growth zone is related to the flow rate; and (3) a lower flow velocity in the main canal facilitates faster growth of an algae zone. This study provides specific and effective suggestions for the key prevention and control positions, which has important guidance on improving the efficiency of algae control in the main canal. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomonitoring of Water Quality)
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22 pages, 1542 KiB  
Article
Application of Macrophytes to the Assessment and Classification of Ecological Status above and below the Barrage with Hydroelectric Buildings
by Paweł Tomczyk, Mirosław Wiatkowski and Łukasz Gruss
Water 2019, 11(5), 1028; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11051028 - 16 May 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3422
Abstract
The key goal of the Water Framework Directive is to achieve a good ecological status in water bodies. The ecological status is mainly determined by the biological elements, which are a very good indicator of the changes taking place in water environments. Thus, [...] Read more.
The key goal of the Water Framework Directive is to achieve a good ecological status in water bodies. The ecological status is mainly determined by the biological elements, which are a very good indicator of the changes taking place in water environments. Thus, this article focuses on the analysis of different methods of assessment of the ecological status of water bodies based on macrophytes used in selected countries in the European Union (the Macrophyte Index for Rivers (MMOR)—Poland; the Mean Trophic Rank (MTR)—Ireland; the Trophic Index of Macrophytes (TIM)—Bavaria, Germany; the Bulgarian Reference Index of Macrophytes (RI-BG)—Bulgaria). Three research sections have been selected for research on the river Ślęza: The reference section, the section above the barrage and the section below the barrage. The analysis carried out revealed considerable similarity between the results obtained by all these methods—the differences were at most by one class of ecological status (and the analysis of sums of Wilcoxon’s ranks revealed that there were no differences between the results obtained using different methods, i.e., p = 0.860). With respect to surface waters, investigation of biological elements is important because it allows one to retrace the past and foresee the future based on the past and present trends in the changes occurring in the species diversity and structure of not only macrophytes, but also other groups of organisms. Further action is required that would determine the scope of influence of barrages with hydroelectric buildings on the environment (in the case of the investigated barrage this influence is negative). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomonitoring of Water Quality)
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10 pages, 1537 KiB  
Article
Developing a Biotechnological Tool for Monitoring Water Quality: In Vitro Clone Culture of the Aquatic Moss Fontinalis Antipyretica
by Sofía Debén, Jesús Ramón Aboal, Pablo Giráldez, Zulema Varela and Jose Ángel Fernández
Water 2019, 11(1), 145; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/w11010145 - 15 Jan 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4164
Abstract
One of the main factors limiting active biomonitoring with aquatic mosses is the lack of sufficient material. A laboratory culture of the moss would solve this problem and thus convert the technique into a valuable biotechnological tool for monitoring water quality. With this [...] Read more.
One of the main factors limiting active biomonitoring with aquatic mosses is the lack of sufficient material. A laboratory culture of the moss would solve this problem and thus convert the technique into a valuable biotechnological tool for monitoring water quality. With this aim, we first established small and large scale axenic in vitro culture systems for the aquatic moss Fontinalis antipyretica. We then attempted to enhance the growth rate of the cultures by modifying temperature, photoperiod and medium composition (N:P ratio, P concentration, CO2 supply, NH4NO3 supply and sucrose supply). None of these modifications greatly increased the in vitro growth rate. However, the growth rates were sufficiently high (relative to the initial weight of the cultures) in both systems (45 and 6 mg·day−1·g−1 for flasks and bioreactors respectively) to enable the production of large amounts of material. The ability to culture the material will substantially improve the applicability of the moss bag technique. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomonitoring of Water Quality)
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13 pages, 1083 KiB  
Article
Assessing Fish Species Tolerance in the Huntai River Basin, China: Biological Traits versus Weighted Averaging Approaches
by Xiao-Ning Wang, Hai-Yu Ding, Xu-Gang He, Yang Dai, Yuan Zhang and Sen Ding
Water 2018, 10(12), 1843; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/w10121843 - 13 Dec 2018
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4453
Abstract
Fish species tolerance used as a component of fish-index of biological integrity (F-IBI) can be problematic as it is usually classified using the historical data, data from literature or expert judgments. In this study, fish assemblages, water quality parameters and physical habitat factors [...] Read more.
Fish species tolerance used as a component of fish-index of biological integrity (F-IBI) can be problematic as it is usually classified using the historical data, data from literature or expert judgments. In this study, fish assemblages, water quality parameters and physical habitat factors from 206 sampling sites in the Huntai River Basin were analyzed to develop tolerance indicator values (TIVs) of fish based on a (Fb-TIVs) and the weighted averaging (WA) method (FW-TIVs). The two quantitative methods for fish tolerance were then compared. The FW-TIVs and Fb-TIVs of fish species were calculated separately using a WA inference model based on ten water quality parameters (WT, pH, DO, SC, TDS, NH3, NO2−, NO3−, TP, Cl−, and SO42−), and six biological traits (lithophilic spawning, benthic invertivores, cold water species, equilibrium or periodic life history strategies, families of Cottidae, and species distribution range). Fish species were then classified into biological traits approach three categories (tolerant species, moderately tolerant species, and sensitive species). The results indicated that only 30.3% fish species have the same classification based on FW-TIVs and Fb-TIVs. However, the proportion of tolerant species based on two methods had a similar response to environmental stress, and these tolerant species were correlated with PCA axes 1 site scores obtained by (FW-TIVs, p < 0.05, R2 = 0.434; Fb-TIVs, p < 0.05, R2 = 0.334) and not correlated with PCA axis 2 site scores (FW-TIVs, p > 0.05, R2 = 0.001; Fb-TIVs, p > 0.05, R2 = 0.012) and PCA axis 3 site scores (FW-TIVs, p > 0.05, R2 = 0.000; Fb-TIVs, p > 0.05, R2 = 0.013). The results of linear regression analyses indicated that Fb-TIVs can be used for the study of fish tolerance. Fish tolerance assessments based on FW-TIVs requires long-term monitoring of fish assemblages and water quality parameters to provide sufficient data for quantitative studies. The Fb-TIV method relies on the accurate identification of fish traits by an ichthyologist. The two methods used in this study can provide methodological references for quantitative studies of fish tolerance in other regions, and are of great significance for the development of biological assessment tools. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomonitoring of Water Quality)
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16 pages, 2178 KiB  
Article
Recognition of Patterns of Benthic Diatom Assemblages within a River System to Aid Bioassessment
by Shuxin Mao, Shuhan Guo, Hongbing Deng, Zhicai Xie and Tao Tang
Water 2018, 10(11), 1559; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/w10111559 - 01 Nov 2018
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3119
Abstract
Benthic algae, especially diatoms, are commonly used to assess water quality in rivers. However, algal-based assessments are challenging at the river system scale because longitudinal variation in physical habitat conditions may obscure algal responses to changes in water quality. In the present study, [...] Read more.
Benthic algae, especially diatoms, are commonly used to assess water quality in rivers. However, algal-based assessments are challenging at the river system scale because longitudinal variation in physical habitat conditions may obscure algal responses to changes in water quality. In the present study, we surveyed benthic diatoms and environmental variables from a mountainous Chinese river system. Hierarchical clustering, discrimination analysis, and indicator species analysis were used together to explore associations between distribution patterns of diatom assemblages and water quality variables. Study sites were clustered into five groups based on their diatom community composition, with sites grouped by the sampling months. Chemical oxygen demand (COD), elevation, and total nitrogen (TN) were the most important predictors for site classification. Site groups with higher elevations had higher TN concentrations; however, COD concentrations were higher in lower elevation groups. Moreover, COD concentrations significantly differed between temporally separated groups. In total, 49 indicator species were identified for individual groups, with most taxa indicating the eutrophic condition. Additionally, we found that European diatom indices are not closely associated with water quality variables. We conclude that the identification of algal patterns and their driving forces can provide valuable information to aid bioassessment at the river system scale. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomonitoring of Water Quality)
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