Comparison of a Rapid Bioassessment Method with North Carolina's Qualitative Macroinvertebrate Collection Method

Abstract

A rapid bioassessment method was compared with the State of North Carolina's standard semi-quantitative collection method. The rapid procedure is essentially a subset of the standard method, but with fewer samples (four) and with collections limited to Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT). Collecting and processing time for this "EPT" method was less than one-half that of the standard collection method, but the more rapid method still produced reliable water quality ratings.