Progress: Ecological river assessment methods
The ASSESS HKH research work intends to achieve applicable tools for river assessment. This will lead to the development and validation of a three-tier methodology to detect hot spots in rivers of the HKH region. The three methods provide three levels of increasing discriminatory power to detect the effects of environmental impacts on the benthic macroinvertebrates, i.e. from a rapid field Bio-assessment method (HKH Screening Method) over a score-based assessment method (HKH Biotic Score) hat needs only simple data processing facilities (MS Excel) to an assessment method that will lead to a special application software (HKH Multimetric Index).
The latter methods have been largely developed, and they have been introduced to the Asian partners at the project meeting in Bhutan from 5 to 9 August, 2007. At the moment the methods are discussed within the consortium and further refined.