Biological and hydromorphological integrity of the small urban stream

Biological and hydromorphological integrity of five reaches of the small urban stream were assessed. Because macroinvertebrate communities respond to both organic pollution and habitat change, impacts of both measures can be hardly separated. In our study on the urbanized small stream, an impact of organic pollution was excluded as all five sampling sites were assessed as moderately polluted. On the other hand differences in morphological degradation of banks and channel of selected sites enabled us to relate hydromorphological stress and biotic metrics and taxa. Physical habitat quality was assessed using River habitat survey (RHS) methodology. A downstream–upstream gradient of physical habitat degradation was observed and related to the macroinvertebrate community characteristics. Similarity analyses and biotic metrics were calculated and correlated with results of the RHS analyses. Composition of the macroinvertebrate assemblages did not follow the longitudinal pattern of habitat modification observed by the RHS analysis. However, some metrics corresponded well. Percentage of detritivores, percentage of Caenis luctuosa, number of individuals, percentage of EPT individuals were best predictors of changes in the physical habitat quality. However, the metric percentage of EPT individuals was negatively correlated to the habitat degradation, what is in contradiction with results from studies of other authors.