Principles and development within the European Water Framework Directive of the French IBGN ( standardised global biological index)

Abstract

Benthic macro-invertebrates are one of the most widely used organism groups in river biomonitoring surveys. In this article, we propose to describe the method for assessing the quality of the environment based on benthic macro-invertebrates (the IBGN method: Indice biologique global normalisé, standardised global biological index) and its evolution in the context of the European Water Framework Directive.