Inland water macroinvertebrate occurrences in Flanders, Belgium

Dataset type

Deze dataset bevat primaire waarnemingsgegevens voor soorten.

Beschrijving

The Flemish Environment Agency (VMM) is performing biological water quality assessments on inland waters in Flanders (Belgium) since 1989 and sediment quality assessments since 2000. The water quality monitoring network is a combined physico-chemical and biological network, the biological component focusing on macro-invertebrates. The sediment monitoring program produces biological data to assess sediment quality. Both monitoring programs aim to provide index values, applying a similar conceptual methodology based on the presence of macro-invertebrates. The biological data obtained from both monitoring networks are consolidated in the VMM database. The dataset published contains: 283,141 records of 207 observed taxa from 4,152 monitoring sites located on more than 669 different water courses. The data are distributed to the public domain under the Creative Commons CC-BY license. The data in this sampling event resource have been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data. It contains a core table with the events (25,317 records) and two related extensions with occurrences (334,796) and measurements (117,089). An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download here:

https://ipt.inbo.be/resource?r=vmm-macroinvertebrates-events Latest update: 2024/12/04

Geografische beschrijving

Belgium is located in the center of Western Europe and its surface area reaches 30,528 km². Of the three administrative regions, Flanders is situated in the northern part and covers an area of 13,522 km² (which is 44.29 % of the Belgian territory), roughly situated on 51° latitude and 4° longitude.

Doel

The macro-invertebrates data set contains data on inland water bodies (assessment of water quality) and on sediments (assessment of sediment quality) to allow calculation of biotic indices.

Gegevenskwaliteit

Comments regarding quality control apply to both the water and sediment quality networks. Field protocols and identification lists were used to allow comparable observations. However, a number of versions with new and adapted data elements haven been produced. Field observations are highly objectivated in this way, although differences resulting from personal interpretation may still occur. The same applies to taxonomic identification, and in this respect it is advised to consult also the expert publications based on the VMM data set (see reference list: publications based on this dataset). Differences with present taxonomic nomenclature can be experienced, for the reason distortion of biotic index values is avoided as much as possible. Be aware a large number of people contributed to the taxonomic identification over the years, which unavoidably led to errors (misidentification, inclusion of terrestrial taxa, etc.). For taxonomic verification of sample material, experts can contact the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS, Brussels) http://collections.naturalsciences.be/) where the VMM macro-invertebrate samples are stored. RBINS identifiers apply to all VMM samples of a single year.

Methoden

Users of the data can comment on this macro-invertebrate dataset at https://github.com/LifeWatchVMM/macro-invertebrates -occurrences .

Type inhoud

Omvat: Puntvoorkomstengegevens.

Bronvermelding

Vannevel R, De Cooman W, Gabriels W, Lavens F, Mertens J, Vervaeke B, Brosens D (2024). Inland water macroinvertebrate occurrences in Flanders, Belgium. Version 1.17. Flanders Environment Agency (VMM). Samplingevent dataset. https://doi.org/10.15468/4cvbka

Rechten

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License.

Gedigitaliseerde records

Metadata voor het laatst bijgewerkt op 2025-06-23 11:56:18.0