Assessing the ecological status of rivers

ASTERICS, including the German assessment system PERLODES is a software, which calculates the ecological status of rivers based on the benthic invertebrate community.

Startpage of the ASTERICS- Software

A river is assessed with a taxa list, from which indices ("metrics") are calculated.

ASTERICS (AQEM/STAR Ecological River Classification System, version 3.1.1) is capable of calculating the following parameters with a taxalist:

• An overall assessment in terms of the ecological quality class

• The ecological quality class based on a number of river type-specific metrics

• The cause of degradation, separated into the main stressors "organic pollution", "acidification" and "general degradation"

• A large number of additional metrics, which can be used for data interpretation

The manual (ASTERICS Software Handbuch, version 3.1.1) provides all relevant information for installing and applying the software.