Macroinvertebrate Community Responses to Multiple Pressures in a Peri-Urban Mediterranean River

Dionissis Latinopoulos (), Chrysoula Ntislidou, Maria Lazarina, Vassiliki Papaevangelou, Christos Akratos and Ifigenia Kagalou ()
Additional contact information
Dionissis Latinopoulos: Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Kimmeria Campus, 67100 Xanthi, Greece
Chrysoula Ntislidou: Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Kimmeria Campus, 67100 Xanthi, Greece
Maria Lazarina: Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Kimmeria Campus, 67100 Xanthi, Greece
Vassiliki Papaevangelou: Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Kimmeria Campus, 67100 Xanthi, Greece
Christos Akratos: Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Kimmeria Campus, 67100 Xanthi, Greece
Ifigenia Kagalou: Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Kimmeria Campus, 67100 Xanthi, Greece

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 24, 1-18

Abstract: Despite peri-urban areas being crucial for ecosystem service provisioning, they usually become degraded, as they are burdened with effluents from urban production activities. Such is the case of Laspias River (Thrace, Greece), where a series of diffuse and point pollution sources are met throughout its course, neglecting the fact that it discharges into a protected area. In an attempt to assist possible management implications in this less-researched river, two years of investigative monitoring provided the insight to test the effect of abiotic parameters in the benthic invertebrate biota and water quality, in turn. The results revealed an avalanche of pressures, where nutrients and organic pollution loads diminish richness and biodiversity, losing any temporal or seasonal pattern, resulting in biotic (taxonomic/functional) homogenization. The river is at a tipping point, and tailored measures must be designed and implemented immediately.

Keywords: benthic macroinvertebrates; monitoring; physicochemical parameters; spatial–temporal patterns; biodiversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/24/16569/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/24/16569/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:24:p:16569-:d:1294533

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().