Use of ecosystem health indicators for assessing anthropogenic impacts on freshwaters in Argentina: a review
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Use of ecosystem health indicators for assessing anthropogenic impacts on freshwaters in Argentina: a review Luciana Rocha Claudia Feijoó
&
Cecilia Hegoburu & Ana Torremorell & & Enrique Navarro & Hugo R. Fernández
Received: 19 May 2020 / Accepted: 17 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Indicators of ecosystem health are effective tools to assess freshwater ecosystem impairment. However, they are scarcely used as a monitoring tool by local environmental agencies in Argentina. Here, we review the literature to analyze the use of ecosystem health indicators in freshwaters from Argentina. We found 91 scientific articles relating to the use of ecological indices to assess the impact of different environmental stressors in aquatic environments published between 1996 and 2019. We generated Google Earth map where we deployed the sampling sites and type of indices reported by each article. As biological indices were the most used, we also surveyed bioindication experts to gather information on their application. We found that most L. Rocha (*) Aquatic Ecology Group (GIEA), INEDES (CONICET-UNLu), Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Universidad Nacional de Luján, Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina e-mail: [email protected]
studies were concentrated mainly in Pampas (34%), Dry Chaco (20%), Espinal (12%), and Patagonian Steppe (10%) ecoregions. Biological indices (mainly with invertebrates) were more used than geomorphological or physico-chemical indices. Indices resulted useful to evaluate the impact of stressors in 63% of cases, being land use the most studied stressor. However, sampling design varied greatly among studies, making their comparison difficult. The information compiled here could help to the design of monitoring protocols, the adoption of regional indices, and the creation of a national inventory of ecosystem health status, which are mandatory to propose well-grounded conservation and management policies for freshwaters in Argentina. Keywords Integrity . Stressor . Monitoring . Indices . Aquatic ecosystems
Introduction C. Hegoburu Freshwater Biogeochemistry Programme (BED), INEDES (CONICET-UNLu), Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina A. Torremorell : C. Feijoó Ecology Program of Protists and Fungi (PEPHON), INEDES (CONICET-UNLu), Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina E. Navarro Pyrenean Institute of Ecology, Spanish National Research Council (IPE-CSIC), 50059 Zaragoza, Spain H. R. Fernández Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo, IBN (CONICET-UNT), San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina
Governments are nowadays facing the tremendous challenge posed by anthropogenic impacts on safe and healthy water for their populations and ecosystems. The search for better ways to identify ecosystem impairment drove to intensive works to find the most complete indicators (Jørgensen 2005). Today, we can identify two concepts in relation to ecosystem condition assessment: the ecological integrity and the ecosystem health. Both have been already presented and discussed during the last three decades
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