

@mastersthesis {6753,
	title = {The biological monitoring of impact and recovery in streams following pollution incidents},
	year = {1997},
	note = {C652028},
	school = {Aston University (United Kingdom)},
	type = {phdPh.{D}.},
	address = {Ann Arbor},
	abstract = {Monitoring benthic macroinvertebrates in rivers as a means of assessing water quality is extensively used. Their use in the assessment of ecosystem response to pollution incidents is less well developed. The responses of the macroinvertebrates within the substratum to a number of actual pollution incidents was investigated. It was found that recovery following pollution incidents was most adequately represented by changes in the abundance of selected taxa; by a measure of Taxa Richness and by multivariate analysis of community similarity using nonmetric multidimensional scaling. The importance of adequate reference conditions was highlighted. In order to learn more about the processes involved in the structural changes of the benthic macroinvertebrate community following a transient pollutant, a laboratory study was carried out to investigate the behavioural response of the amphipod, Gammarus pulex, to a toxicant. An increase in burrowing behaviour was found, a behaviour which may, under field conditions, result in increased survival following short term pollution. This finding gives an indication of the complexities underlying overt structural changes within the community following a transient pollution. A novel assessment of recovery within streams: the {\textquoteright}Recovery Index{\textquoteright} was developed, which attempts to numerically define and rank the differential colonisation times shown by different taxa. By allocating higher scores to taxa that are slower to recolonise sites, utilisation of the {\textquoteright}Recovery Index{\textquoteright} in the assessment of recovery will result in a more sensitive assessment of recovery times following pollution incidents and the reduced likelihood of erroneous assessment of recovery. The Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards (CIMAH) regulations have guidelines for environmental survey, against which the effects of an accident could be judged. Recommendations for the development of these guidelines are given, incorporating the use of the {\textquoteright}Recovery Index{\textquoteright}.},
	keywords = {0329:Ecology, 0768:Environmental science, 0793:Freshwater ecology, Biological sciences, Ecology, Environmental science, Freshwater ecology, Gammarus pulex, Health and environmental sciences},
	url = {http://search.proquest.com/docview/304386107?accountid=14270},
	author = {Pisolkar, Ellen Maya}
}
