Scaling methods in assessing environmental quality: A methodological approach to eutrophication

✍ Scribed by Michael Karydis

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 839 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-6369
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00418011

✦ Synopsis

The identification of pollution levels by numerical classification -ordination and the statistical confirmation of the detected trends -were attempted in a eutrophication assessment study. Special emphasis was placed on the importance of data scaling and the selection of a distance coefficient that would accentuate discrete states within the system. Among metric, binary and ordinal variable scaling, ordinal numbers showed the maximum sensitivity in discriminating pollution levels; the observed trends were further enhanced by using the absolute distance coefficient as a resemblance measure. The eutrophic patterns identified were statistically confirmed by a non-parametric permutation test. Finally a step-by-step multivariate procedure is proposed for assessing environmental quality in aquatic ecosystems.