THE NEED FOR BIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF WATER-QUALITY - AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE

Biological assessment of water quality in Australia is entering a stag e of rapid development largely because of the inclusion of biological indicators in water quality guidelines and growing concern for ecologi cal values. Approaches ro water quality assessment include toxicity te sting, use of biomarkers and several methods using community structure . For assessment diverse organisms such as fish, algae and (the most c ommonly used) macroinvertebrates are used. Interaction of data analysi s with methods of data collection requires co-ordinated research on bo th fronts. Recent developments in the use of multivariate statistics t o produce models for predicting water quality are likely to be useful in Australia. Much innovative work is still needed in Australia on the use of algae and fish, defining tolerance categories and establishing monitoring programmes performed in time-frames equivalent to those in use for physical and chemical methods.