Polsko-Norweski Fundusz Badań Naukowych / Polish-Norwegian Research Fund Third phase of deWELopment project Scope of the work Warsaw, 1st Feb. 2010

Polsko-Norweski Fundusz Badań Naukowych / Polish-Norwegian Research Fund The third phase of the project will include all statistical analyses to validate existing metrics and assessment methods for the different biological elements. Datasets generated from the field sampling, as well as other existing data from the same sites, will be explored, using the series of statistical and modelling techniques (regression, multivariate analyses such as ordination, and Bayesian network models) to identify and validate the pressure-sensitivity and the precision of metrics, taking the error estimation results into account. Different types of metrics will be tested, both structural (taxonomic composition, diversity), and functional metrics based on common species traits. The metrics developed in the international projects and in the Pan-European intercalibration exercise will be tested as well. The first phase – kick-off meeting The second phase – sampling campaign

Polsko-Norweski Fundusz Badań Naukowych / Polish-Norwegian Research Fund The transferability (robustness) of metrics/multimetrics to other lake types and ecoregions will also be addressed. Error estimation for different indicator metrics will be done using the data generated from the field sampling of the study sites. Spatial, temporal and analytical uncertainty will be examined for different metrics along the pressure gradients, as a basis for the identification of good indicators (sensitive to pressure and of high precision) from the wrong indicators (not so sensitive and of low precision). The uncertainty in the pressure and hydromorphological data as such will also be quantified using among others STURBUGS software developed within STAR Project. Altogether these uncertainty analyses will be used to assess the risk of misclassification at different levels of sampling frequency (temporal variability), and number of sites/habitats (spatial variability).

Polsko-Norweski Fundusz Badań Naukowych / Polish-Norwegian Research Fund The fourth phase of the project will include testing combination rules to obtain one final assessment result. There are several options for combination of single metrics (sensitive to pressure and of high precision) into one assessment result for each biological quality element (BQE): arithmetic mean of all single metrics, weighted mean of all single metrics, in which lower weight is given to single metrics with lower precision, constructing a multimetric index from all the single metrics or using the one-out-all-out principle in which the metric with the lowest value decides the BQE final result. Also the different ways of combining the assessment results for different BQE into one final result for the whole water body will be tested. Here the recommended by Water Framework Directive (WFD) one-out-all-out rule will be compared to other alternative methods. The risk of misclassification will be estimated using the same statistical methods as in previous paragraph.

Polsko-Norweski Fundusz Badań Naukowych / Polish-Norwegian Research Fund Thank you for your attention !