Project NoMBSI

In accordance with the requirements of Water Frame Directive of the European Parliament (2000) the assessment of ecological status in flowing waters should be performed on the basis of co called "biological elements". The most widespread of them are benthic invertebrates. According to the officially recommended methods abundant samples of benthic fauna should be collected in assessing habitat, sampled animals killed, preserved in ethyl alcohol and then identified and counted. The aim of this procedure is obtaining the values of standardized metrics and indices based on taxonomic structure, diversity and abundance of certain taxa in samples. Such methodology resulted in death of even few thousand animals at particular sampling site, also those species which are considered as rare and endargeded. Moreover only part of killed animals is used to ecological quality assessment, the rest are killed just by the way.

Does really the mass killing of thousands of benthic animals necessary?

Are there any other, less invasive method to obtain valuable data on abundance and taxonomic structure of riverine fauna?

This www page presents such alternative method, non-killing and reducing mortality in benthic invertebrates which provides sufficient data for a reliable environmental assessment - NoMBSI ( Non-lethal Method of Benthos Sampling and Identification).
The protocol is based on:

1. Sampling of fauna in flowing waters with using of artificial substrate
2. Imaging samples in a form of HD three-dimensional digital photos
3. Image analysis directed to obtaing values of xyz index, prepared by Authors to express environmental status at sampling site

Following Key is intended to taxonomic classification of sampled animals on the basis of its digital images which were prepared in accordance with NOMBSI procedure and could be suitable to calculate the values of NoASPT index. Multimetric biotic index NoMI, based on the same procedures of sampling and identification is under development.

Official informations about the project can be found here)