Tasked by the Clean Water Act to restore and maintain the integrity of their waters, state and local governments must develop systems for assessing the health of the streams within their borders. They quickly find that one size does not fit all when it comes to sampling. Rapid Bioassessment of Stream Health examines the sampling techniques, laborat

Duncan L. Hughes, James Gore, Michele P. Brossett, John R. Olson

Introduction. Reference Conditions: Selection of Regional Reference Sites. Assessing Impact Using the Synoptic Approach. Data Sources and Preprocessing. Field and Laboratory Methods. Data Analysis. An Unbiased Approach to Creating Reference Conditions. Biotic Index Development. The Numerical Ranking System. Fixed-Count Subsampling and Bootstrap Resampling: An Evaluation. Is the Representative Stream Reach Really "Representative"? Analysis through Examination of QA/QC Samples. A Final Assessment of Rapid Bioassessment. Incorporating Rapid Bioassessment into the Regulatory Structure.