COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BIOLOGICAL WATER ASSESSMENT METHODS — PRACTICAL DEMONSTRATION ON THE RIVER MAIN

In June 1975 the customary biological-ecological assessment procedures used in EC-countries were compared at a meeting of EC-experts at the Bundesanstalt fur Gewasserkunde, Koblenz. Individual reports and a summary report of the EC for this are submitted. The contribution is concerned first with the goals and informational content of biological-ecological water analyses and with the relationship of these to chemical/ physical and experimental-biological analysis procedures. Then the particular requirements of practical water conservation with regard to biological procedures are sketched out and the results of the meeting of experts in Koblenz discussed in the light of these considerations. The very different parallel procedures employed by the experts are comparable and their results can be transposed. With this a way is also opened for the general use of biological evaluation scales in the European region, e.g. for water protection agreements.