scholarly journals Monitoring Skeletal Anomalies in Big-Scale Sand Smelt, Atherina boyeri, as a Potential Complementary Tool for Early Detection of Effects of Anthropic Pressure in Coastal Lagoons

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 159
Author(s):  
Chiara Leone ◽  
Francesca De Luca ◽  
Eleonora Ciccotti ◽  
Arianna Martini ◽  
Clara Boglione
Keyword(s):  
Early Detection ◽  
Habitat Degradation ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Coastal Lagoons ◽  
Ecological Status ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressures ◽  
Morphological Examination ◽  
Skeletal Anomalies

Mediterranean coastal lagoons are increasingly affected by several threats, all concurrently leading to habitat degradation and loss. Methods based on fish for the assessment of the ecological status are under implementation for the Water Framework Directive requirements, to assess the overall quality of coastal lagoons. Complementary tools based on the use of single fish species as biological indicators could be useful as early detection methods of anthropogenic impacts. The analysis of skeletal anomalies in the big-scale sand smelt, Atherina boyeri, from nine Mediterranean coastal lagoons in Italy was carried out. Along with the morphological examination of fish, the environmental status of the nine lagoons was evaluated using a method based on expert judgement, by selecting and quantifying several environmental descriptors of direct and indirect human pressures acting on lagoon ecosystems. The average individual anomaly load and the frequency of individuals with severe anomalies allow to discriminate big-scale sand smelt samples on the basis of the site and of its quality status. Furthermore, a relationship between skeletal anomalies and the environmental quality of specific lagoons, driven by the anthropogenic pressures acting on them, was found. These findings support the potentiality of skeletal anomalies monitoring in big-scale sand smelt as a tool for early detection of anthropogenic impacts in coastal lagoons of the Mediterranean region.

Assessment of anthropogenic-causing-agents act on waterbirds-diversity in the vicinity of Tarbela Dam, Indus River, Pakistan

2024 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. Rahman ◽  
M. S. Nadeem ◽  
M. Altaf ◽  
S. H. Khan ◽  
A. Saeed ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Human Disturbance ◽  
Habitat Degradation ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Bird Diversity ◽  
Indus River ◽  
Causative Agents ◽  
Tarbela Dam ◽  
Main Factor

Abstract Birds are among the best bio-indicators, which can guide us to recognize some of the main conservation concerns in ecosystems. Anthropogenic impacts such as deforestation, habitat degradation, modification of landscapes, and decreased quality of habitats are major threats to bird diversity. The present study was designed to detect anthropogenic causative agents that act on waterbird diversity in Tarbella Dam, Indus River, Pakistan. Waterbird censuses were carried out from March 2019 to February 2020 in multiple areas around the dam. A total of 2990 waterbirds representing 63 species were recorded. We detected the highest waterbird richness and diversity at Pehure whereas the highest density was recorded at Kabbal. Human activity impacts seemed to be the main factor determining the waterbird communities as waterbirds were negatively correlated with the greatest anthropogenic impacts. Waterbirds seem to respond rapidly to human disturbance.

scholarly journals Improvement of the esca index for the evaluation of ecological quality of coralligenous habitat under the european framework directives

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 419 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. PIAZZI ◽  
P. GENNARO ◽  
E. CECCHI ◽  
F. SERENA
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Variability ◽  
Ecological Status ◽  
Sampling Effort ◽  
Photographic Method ◽  
Ecological Quality ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressures ◽  
Small Scales ◽  
High Good ◽  
Different Sources

The ESCA (Ecological Status of Coralligenous Assemblages) index was recently developed to evaluate the ecological quality of coralligenous habitat. The study aims to improve the first index proposal through testing response to different sources of anthropogenic pressures and optimizing the sampling effort. ESCA was calculated on 14 sites and tested against a gradient of human pressures. Moreover, the main scales of spatial variability of assemblages were evaluated and values of index obtained with different sampling designs were compared. Results showed that studied sites resulted in high, good or moderate ecological status, according to an increasing gradient of the anthropization level. Values of ESCA index obtained with different methods have been compared and photographic method provides EQR values lower than destructive method. Spatial variability of assemblages was higher at large and small scales than at intermediate ones. Two locations for each study site and 20 replicated samples for each location may be consider the best sampling combination providing reliable values of ESCA index for the evaluation of ecological quality of coralligenous assemblages.

scholarly journals Fish as bioindicators of habitat degradation in coastal lagoons of Ghana

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
BADU BORTELEY EUGENIA ◽  
A. K. ARMAH ◽  
H.R. DANKWA
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Degradation ◽  
Coastal Lagoons ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Ecological Status ◽  
Mugil Cephalus ◽  
Stress Factors ◽  
Estuarine Fish ◽  
Mild Stress ◽  
Sarotherodon Melanotheron ◽  
Caranx Hippos

Abstract. Eugenia BB, Armah AK, Dankwa HR. 2018. Fish as bioindicators of habitat degradation in coastal lagoons of Ghana. Bonorowo Wetlands 2: 9-26. Lagoons habitat forms an integral part of the marine fishing industry and provides essential spawning and nursery grounds for many fishes. Fish act as biological indicators of water quality and changes by summarizing information regarding their environment. Two lagoons, Laloi and Oyibi in the and Greater Accra and Central Regions of Ghana were studied to determine the ecological status using the Estuarine Fish Community Index (EFCI). Metrics assigned were the species diversity, nursery function, trophic integrity, and species abundance and composition. Water samples were obtained at the riverine, middle, and seaward portions during both high and low tides at each site. Fisherfolks were hired to fish at each of the sites. There are no significant differences between sites as measured by diversity indices. Multivariate analysis showed a considerable similarity between sites regarding species composition. This study identified eighteen species, including both finfish and shellfish. Two most abundant species during the study was the flathead grey mullet (Mugil cephalus) and the black-chinned tilapia (Sarotherodon melanotheron). Mugil cephalus dominated catches in the Laloi lagoon, whereas Sarotherodon melanotheron were dominant in the Oyibi Lagoon. The most dominant species collected for the Laloi lagoon were S. melanotheron, Lutjanus fulgens, and Eucinostomus melanopterus. Caranx hippos, L. fulgens, and M. cephalus constituted a significant part of fishes caught in the Oyibi lagoon. The carangid, Caranx hippos contributed primarily of the biomass of fishes collected for both lagoons. In the rainy season, total fish abundance was higher than the dry season. Chlorophyll-a concentrations and condition factor of S. melanotheron were highest at both lagoons. Total organic carbon was high in the Oyibi lagoon; hence, the high numbers of S. melanotheron recorded. Tides were an essential factor affecting physicochemical parameters. Oyibi displayed a moderate site rating, suggesting that it was under mild stress with some stress factors identified were garbage dumping, defecation, land-use changes, and increased human pressure. Meanwhile, Laloi Lagoon had a poor site rating, suggesting that it was under severe stress. The principal strains identified were overfishing, garbage dumping, mangrove degradation, and increased human settlements along the sides of the lagoon. The multi-metric index described served an effective method which reflects the status of lagoon fish communities and the overall ecosystem conditions.

scholarly journals Early Detection Methods for Silicosis in Australia and Internationally: A Review of the Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (15) ◽  
pp. 8123
Author(s):  
Emma K. Austin ◽  
Carole James ◽  
John Tessier
Keyword(s):  
Early Detection ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Detection Method ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Occupational Lung Disease ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Future Work

Pneumoconiosis, or occupational lung disease, is one of the world’s most prevalent work-related diseases. Silicosis, a type of pneumoconiosis, is caused by inhaling respirable crystalline silica (RCS) dust. Although silicosis can be fatal, it is completely preventable. Hundreds of thousands of workers globally are at risk of being exposed to RCS at the workplace from various activities in many industries. Currently, in Australia and internationally, there are a range of methods used for the respiratory surveillance of workers exposed to RCS. These methods include health and exposure questionnaires, spirometry, chest X-rays, and HRCT. However, these methods predominantly do not detect the disease until it has significantly progressed. For this reason, there is a growing body of research investigating early detection methods for silicosis, particularly biomarkers. This literature review summarises the research to date on early detection methods for silicosis and makes recommendations for future work in this area. Findings from this review conclude that there is a critical need for an early detection method for silicosis, however, further laboratory- and field-based research is required.

scholarly journals How to Assess the Ecological Status of Highly Humic Lakes? Development of a New Method Based on Benthic Invertebrates

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 223
Author(s):  
Dāvis Ozoliņš ◽  
Agnija Skuja ◽  
Jolanta Jēkabsone ◽  
Ilga Kokorite ◽  
Andris Avotins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Status ◽  
Working Party ◽  
Nutrient Content ◽  
Humic Lakes ◽  
Raised Bog ◽  
Raised Bogs ◽  
Taxa Richness ◽  
Bog Lakes ◽  
Status Assessment

Highly humic lakes are typical for the boreal zone. These unique ecosystems are characterised as relatively undisturbed habitats with brown water, high acidity, low nutrient content and lack of macrophytes. Current lake assessment methods are not appropriate for ecological assessment of highly humic lakes because of their unique properties and differing human pressures acting on these ecosystems. This study proposes a new approach suitable for the ecological status assessment of highly humic lakes impacted by hydrological modifications. Altogether, 52 macroinvertebrate samples from 15 raised bog lakes were used to develop the method. The studied lakes are located in the raised bogs at the central and eastern parts of Latvia. Altered water level was found as the main threat to the humic lake habitats since no other pressures were established. A multimetric index based on macroinvertebrate abundance, littoral and profundal preferences, Coleoptera taxa richness and the Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP) Score is suggested as the most suitable tool to assess the ecological quality of the highly humic lakes.

scholarly journals The Influence of Flow Regime on Ecological Quality, Bird Diversity, and Shellfish Fisheries in a Lowland Mediterranean River and Its Coastal Area

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Belmar ◽  
Carles Ibáñez ◽  
Ana Forner ◽  
Nuno Caiola
Keyword(s):  
Aquatic Vegetation ◽  
Environmental Flows ◽  
Ecological Status ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Habitat Characteristics ◽  
Bird Diversity ◽  
Ecological Quality ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressures ◽  
Discharge Data ◽  
Mantis Shrimp

Designing environmental flows in lowland river sections and estuaries is a challenge for researchers and managers, given their complexity and their importance, both for nature conservation and economy. The Ebro River and its delta belong to a Mediterranean area with marked anthropogenic pressures. This study presents an assessment of the relationships between mean flows (discharges) computed at different time scales and (i) ecological quality based on fish populations in the lower Ebro, (ii) bird populations, and (iii) two shellfish fishery species of socioeconomic importance (prawn, or Penaeus kerathurus, and mantis shrimp, or Squilla mantis). Daily discharge data from 2000 to 2015 were used for analyses. Mean annual discharge was able to explain the variation in fish-based ecological quality, and model performance increased when aquatic vegetation was incorporated. Our results indicate that a good ecological status cannot be reached only through changes on discharge, and that habitat characteristics, such as the coverage of macrophytes, must be taken into account. In addition, among the different bird groups identified in our study area, predators were related to river discharge. This was likely due to its influence on available resources. Finally, prawn and mantis shrimp productivity were influenced up to a certain degree by discharge and physicochemical variables, as inputs from rivers constitute major sources of nutrients in oligotrophic environments such as the Mediterranean Sea. Such outcomes allowed revisiting the environmental flow regimes designed for the study area, which provides information for water management in this or in other similar Mediterranean zones.

scholarly journals Benchmarking Unsupervised Outlier Detection with Realistic Synthetic Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Georg Steinbuss ◽  
Klemens Böhm
Keyword(s):  
Outlier Detection ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Benchmark Data ◽  
Core Idea ◽  
Generic Process ◽  
Unsupervised Outlier Detection

Benchmarking unsupervised outlier detection is difficult. Outliers are rare, and existing benchmark data contains outliers with various and unknown characteristics. Fully synthetic data usually consists of outliers and regular instances with clear characteristics and thus allows for a more meaningful evaluation of detection methods in principle. Nonetheless, there have only been few attempts to include synthetic data in benchmarks for outlier detection. This might be due to the imprecise notion of outliers or to the difficulty to arrive at a good coverage of different domains with synthetic data. In this work, we propose a generic process for the generation of datasets for such benchmarking. The core idea is to reconstruct regular instances from existing real-world benchmark data while generating outliers so that they exhibit insightful characteristics. We propose and describe a generic process for the benchmarking of unsupervised outlier detection, as sketched so far. We then describe three instantiations of this generic process that generate outliers with specific characteristics, like local outliers. To validate our process, we perform a benchmark with state-of-the-art detection methods and carry out experiments to study the quality of data reconstructed in this way. Next to showcasing the workflow, this confirms the usefulness of our proposed process. In particular, our process yields regular instances close to the ones from real data. Summing up, we propose and validate a new and practical process for the benchmarking of unsupervised outlier detection.

scholarly journals Evaulation of the Quality of an Aquatic Habitat on the Drietomica River

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-48
Author(s):  
Ivan Stankoci ◽  
Jana Jariabková ◽  
Viliam Macura
Keyword(s):  
Salmo Trutta ◽  
Ecological Status ◽  
Aquatic Habitat ◽  
Main Step ◽  
Northwestern Part ◽  
River Habitat ◽  
Habitat Simulation ◽  
Brown Trout Salmo Trutta ◽  
The One

Abstract The ecological status of a river is influenced by many factors, of which the most important are fauna and flora; in this paper they are defined as a habitat. During the years 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2011, research on the hydroecological quality of a habitat was evaluated in the reference section of the Drietomica River. Drietomica is a typical representative river of the Slovak flysch area and is located in the region of the White Carpathians in the northwestern part of Slovakia. In this article the results of modeling a microhabitat by means of the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) are presented. For the one-dimensional modeling, the River Habitat Simulation System (RHABSIM) was used to analyse the interaction between a water flow, the morphology of a riverbed, and the biological components of the environment. The habitat ´s hydroecological quality was evaluated after detailed ichthyological, topographical and hydro-morphological surveys. The main step was assessing the biotic characteristics of the habitat through the suitability curves for the Brown trout (Salmo trutta m. fario). Suitability curves are a graphic representation of the main biotic and abiotic preferences of a microhabitat´s components. The suitability curves were derived for the depth, velocity, fish covers and degree of the shading. For evaluating the quality of the aquatic habitat, 19 fish covers were closely monitored and evaluated. The results of the Weighted Usable Area (WUA = f (Q)) were evaluated from a comprehensive assessment of the referenced reach of the Drietomica River.

Navigational Data Change Detection Based on Rasterizing Features & Attributes

2012 ◽  
Vol 256-259 ◽  
pp. 2279-2284
Author(s):  
Lian Ying Li ◽  
Zhang Huang ◽  
Xiao Lan Xu
Keyword(s):  
Change Detection ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Vehicle Navigation ◽  
Digital Map ◽  
Navigation Data ◽  
Data Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
Map Data ◽  
Data Updating

A necessary updating degree is vital for the digital map data in a vehicle navigation system. Only when the digital map data are well updated, can the quality of the navigation be assured. Today the companies devoting to the production of digital map data for vehicle navigation have to cost much labor, material and capital to collect and update data in order to maintain a necessary updating degree. Throughout the history of electronic navigation data updating, they have made considerable progress both on the methods and processes of data production, and the way of map management. Updating from the CD to the network, from the wired to the wireless, from the replacing to the incremental way, each of the technical changes is a power source to enhance the data updating rate. As we all know, the change detection is a prerequisite and base for the electronic navigation data updating. By rapidly developing the area with changes and using the appropriate updating method, we can scientifically maintain the original database of navigation data and terminal physical data. In view of this, starting from application needs for dynamic data updating, this paper analyses change detection methods of navigation data in different versions used for generating incremental data, and focuses on that of rasterizing features and attributes, exploring a new approach to quickly get the incremental data between versions.

scholarly journals The Use of Biological Indices for the Assessment of the River Quality (Ruda River, Poland)

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aneta Spyra ◽  
Justyna Kubicka ◽  
Małgorzata Strzelec
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Benthic Invertebrates ◽  
Ecological Status ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Human Pressure ◽  
Dam Reservoir ◽  
River Quality ◽  
Water Field ◽  
Study Sites

AbstractRecognition of the deteriorating conditions of rivers worldwide has called for increased efforts to improve the ecological quality of impacted river systems. This is particularly important in areas that have suffered from a significant impact of human pressure on the ecological status of water. Field studies were conducted in the Ruda River in an area that had undergone anthropogenic disturbances. The objectives of our survey were to test the biological metrics based on benthic macroinvertebrates at four study sites. Spring and autumn surveys of benthic invertebrates indicated that based on the BMWP and BMWP(PL) indices, water quality was higher in comparison with the value of Multimetric index at all of the sites that were studied. Our results revealed that the water quality was higher at the study sites that are located above the dam reservoir based on both the chemical and biological parameters. This study also indicated that both spring and autumn constitute appropriate periods for carrying out monitoring studies. The values of multimeric index indicated the same water quality (except for site 1) in both sampling periods. Anthropogenic transformations of a riverbed influence the flora and fauna and affect the ecological status of rivers.

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