Page 166 - Freshwater-Biology-and-Ecology-Handbook

CHAPTER 3 4.1 4

RIVER INVERTEBRATE STATUS

CLASSIFICATION IN THE UK

4.1 Overview

There are currently two statutory river invertebrate quality database and development reports are available from
classifications in the UK: the general quality assessment the RICT website at: https://www.fba.org.uk/other-
described here and another specifically for acidification. scientific-collaborations/rivpacs-and-rict The software
is written in R and can be downloaded from the website or
The acidification classification is only used to assess run as a web application.
river status in Scotland and Wales, although it is used
for investigations in England. Reference values for this You can download the RIVPACS reference database from:
classification are not based on RIVPACS but on the https://www.fba.org.uk/rivpacs-and-rict/rivpacs-rict-
susceptibility of sites to acidification from acid deposition. resources This lists the species found in all the RIVPACS
It is described in Section 6. reference samples and their abundances, biotic indices
derived from them, and the averages of these vaues across
The River Invertebrate Classification Tool Version 2 sites in each ‘end group’ (known as end-group means),
(RICT2) software, released in 2020, not only implements which RIVPACS uses in its agorithms to predict them.
the current version of RIVPACS (RIVPACS IV) but
also calculates the general river invertebrate status The flow diagram in Figure 3.18 describes the classification
classification. The software, user guides, reference process from sample collection to data analysis.

Leuctra geniculata nymph

Dinocras cephalotes

166 | Freshwater Biology and Ecology Handbook
–