Additional analysis of river invertebrate trends from NERC ChemPop project

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Description

The analysis already undertaken in ChemPop showed continuing improvement in the quality of river invertebrate communities, broadly agreeing with other researchers analyses of this data. This trend was seen in all parts of the country, in both urban and rural environments, in all types of stream and regardless of wastewater discharges. This result does not match many people's assumption that the ecological quality of our rivers is in decline. This may be because few of the studies undertaken so far have reached publication yet, and the Environment Agency has been more concerned with fixing environmental issues where they occur than reporting the broader picture. Refining the analysis of long-term trends observed in the ChemPop study, and other studies such as NERC's GLiTRS project, will improve understanding of invertebrate trends in freshwaters. An important component of this proposal is to hold a meeting of the various teams and individuals that have or are investigating long-term trends in freshwater invertebrates to consider the differences between their analyses (which may be best carried out once teams have published their findings). This work will help Defra's work delivering our biodiversity and water quality targets as set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan and will help us communicate changes to the environment. Demonstrating that, in general, river invertebrate communities are not in decline will help put the widespread species abundance target for freshwater invertebrates into perspective. It will also inform Defra and other agencies where our current approaches to environmental management are working, so that actions can be focused where improvement is needed.

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