QA Standards
Quality Assurance in marine biological monitoring
The following paper outlines a system of Quality Assurance
that should be in place for all marine biological
monitoring: Quality Assurance in
Marine Biological Monitoring.
Data standards and guidelines
Adherence to data standards and guidelines (where they exist) on
a national, European or international scale is necessary to
demonstrate that the data produced from an organisation's
monitoring programme is of an equivalent scientific quality and
comparability at a national, European or international scale.
Such data standards and guidelines include:
- Authoritative taxonomic species lists which contain current
taxonomic names and synonyms, for example:
- Data and metadata guidelines which define data and metadata
formats to ensure data can be easily and shared in the future, for
example:
Standardised methods
Development of and adherence to national, European or
international standardised methods (where they exist) is a
statutory requirement in the Water Framework and the Marine
Strategy Framework Directives. The adoption of standardised
methods ensures consistency between organisations and will allow
for the production of data which is of an equivalent scientific
quality and comparability.
Many of the UK government agencies protocols and standards for
UK and European marine monitoring programmes are available on the
Marine
Monitoring Protocols Database.
The following is a list of all British Standards (BSi),
International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) standards and
European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) standards which exist
for marine biological monitoring:
Fish
BS EN 14757:2005. Water quality - Sampling of fish with
multi-mesh gillnets. 30pp.
BS EN 14962:2006. Water quality - Guidance on the scope
and selection of fish sampling methods. 28pp.
Phytoplankton
BS EN 15204:2006. Water quality - Guidance standard on the
enumeration of phytoplankton using inverted microscopy (Utermöhl
technique). 46 pp.
BS EN 15972:2009. Water quality - Guidance on quantitative
and qualitative investigations of marine phytoplankton. 29
pp.
Benthic Infauna
EN ISO 16665:2005 (Working Document). Water quality -
Guidelines for quantitative sampling and sample processing of
marine soft-bottom macrofauna.
Epibiota
CEN/TC230 N 646 (Working Document). Water quality - Visual
seabed surveys using remotely operated and towed observation gear
for collection of environmental data.
EN ISO 19493:2007. Water quality - Guidance on marine
biological surveys of hard-substrate communities. 32 pp.
General
BS EN ISO 5667-1:2006. Water quality - Sampling - Part 1:
Guidance on the design of sampling programmes and sampling
techniques. 42 pp.
BS EN ISO 5667-3:2003. Water quality -Sampling - Part 3:
Guidance on the preservation and handling of water samples. 31
pp.
Marine Sediment
BS EN ISO 5667-19:2004. Water quality - Part 19: Guidance
on sampling in marine sediments. 26 pp.
Quality Assurance and Quality Control
BS EN 14996:2006. Water quality - Guidance on assuring the
quality of biological and ecological assessments in the aquatic
environment. 14pp.
BS EN ISO/IEC 17025: 2005. General requirements for the
competence of testing and calibration laboratories. 28pp.
BS EN ISO 19011:2002. Guidelines for quality and/or
environmental management systems auditing. 32 pp.
CEN/TC 230/WG 2/TG 6: N 59 (Working document). Water
Quality - Guidance standard on the design and analysis of
interlaboratory comparison studies for ecological assessment.
8pp.
ICES, 2004. Biological monitoring: General guidelines for
quality assurance. Ed. by H. Rees. ICES Techniques in Marine
Environmental Sciences, No. 32. 44 pp.
Additional marine and freshwater British Standards
Please go to the British Standards website
Biological Methods page for a complete list of marine an
freshwater biological standards.
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