This will be an intermediate webinar, suitable for river lovers who have a basic grasp of the Clean Water Act’s water quality standards program. If you need to brush up on standards, please see our February 15 Water Quality Standards webinar or take the standards lesson in our Online Clean Water Act course.

This webinar will provide an understanding of bioassessement, biocriteria, and the possible power of those tools in protecting and restoring your watershed. Bioassessements are an evaluation of the biological condition of a waterbody using biological surveys and other direct measurements of macroinvertebrates, fish, etc. Bioassessements both support development of biocriteria and decisions regarding the attainment of biocriteria. Biocriteria are either narrative or numeric expressions that describe the reference biological integrity (structure and function) of various aquatic communities. The reference conditions become the “goal” or criteria for other similar waterbodies, and are used for Clean Water Act regulatory purposes. Our speaker, Susan Davies, is widely recognized as one of the leading experts on biocriteria development and use, and has real-world experience from her work in Maine and beyond.

What will you learn in Biocriteria in the Real World?

• The fundamentals of bioassessement and biocriteria – and how they can be used to protect your rivers.
• Examples of how strong biocriteria programs have made a difference for rivers, lakes and wetlands – applying the theory of biocriteria in the real world.
• Where to find information on your own state’s bioassessement and biocriteria programs, and how to understand what you find.