River Invertebrate Classification Tool. Final report

The project aimed to produce a tool to assess the quality of invertebrate communities in UK rivers to meet the needs of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (2000/60/EC). The Regulatory Agencies in the UK currently use RIVPACS models to classify ecological quality in rivers, using data from invertebrate samples. The Agencies are required to assess the status of invertebrate communities for the WFD; however, the current version of RIVPACS pre-dates the WFD, so is not fully compliant. This project aimed to produce a new classification tool that fully meets the needs of the Agencies in their delivery of WFD monitoring. The new River Invertebrate Classification Tool (RICT) is based on RIVPACS models, and incorporates fully up-to-date taxonomy and a revised database of ‘reference’ river sites. It includes the ability to predict new biological indices, produce biological status assessments based on these new indices and it is able to estimate the errors involved in sampling and analysis. Because the classification tool and its methods must be transparent, the tool will be freely available in the public domain