Applicability of the 'Watershed Habitat Evaluation and Stream Integrity Protocol' (WHEBIP) in assessment of the stream integrity in Bregalnica River Basin

This paper reports the assessment of ecological integrity of streams in Bregalnica
River Basin with emphasis on river Bregalnica as the biggest and most important
watercourse in Eastern Macedonia. The results have principally been derived from
remote sensing data and set up in a model build up on Watershed Habitat Evaluation
and Stream Integrity Protocol (WHEBIP). WHEBIP effectiveness in predicting
ecological integrity of streams has been assessed by correlation analyses derived
upon data on macroinvertebrate biotic indices and physico-chemical parameters on
35 localities throughout the basin. The statistical analyses confirmed the capacity of
WHEBIP to predict stream site-specific features with great accuracy in case of
Bregalnica.
The results obtained in this study contribute towards improvement of the WHEBIP
protocol and in general promotes applicability of stream integrity assessment tools
in setting priorities for integrated watershed management.