MEDPACS, a Mediterranean Prediction And Classification System for benthic macroinvertebrate communities and its use to assess the ecological status according to the European Water Framework Directive

J.M. Poquet¹, J. Alba-Tercedor¹, T. Puntí², M.M. Montoya-Sánchez³, S. Robles⁴, M. Álvarez⁵, C. Zamora-Muñoz¹, C.E. Sainz-Cantero¹, M.R. Vidal-Abarca³, M.L. Suárez³, M. Toro⁶, A.M. Pujante⁷, M. Rieradevall², and N. Prat².¹Departamento de Biología Animal, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain, 18071, ²Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 08028 , ³Departamento de Ecología e Hidrología, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain 30100, ⁴Cimera Estudios Aplicados SL, Parque Científico de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 28760, ⁵Área de Ecología, Universidad de Vigo, Vigo, Spain, 36200, ⁶División de Ecología de los Sistemas Acuáticos Continentales, CEDEX, Madrid, Spain, 28005, ⁷Red-Control SL, Parque Tecnológico de Valencia, Paterna, Spain, 46980

With the new European Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC), a new vision of biomonitoring and preservation of aquatic ecosystems is running throughout Europe. In this sense, the WFD introduce the duty to keep and achieve a good ecological status for all the water bodies of the Member States, regardless the use of their waters. Within this perspective, Spain has been running a national project on Mediterranean streams named “GUADALMED”. One of the main goals of this project is to develop a predictive model (MEDPACS) to assess the ecological status of these particular systems, based on English and Australian models (RIVPACS and AUSRIVAS). To deal with this objective, 120 reference sites along the east of the Iberian Peninsula were seasonally sampled during 2003. A first approach of MEDPACS has been developed with combined presence/absence data for spring, summer and autumn. The resultant model includes 115 reference sites and 6 environmental variables, allowing to obtain the Ecological Quality Ratio (EQR = observed/expected) for the number of families and the biotic indices IBMWP and IASPT, as measures of the ecological status.