South African River Health Programme

URL: http://www.csir.co.za/rhp/rhp_background.html

The South African River Health Programme (RHP) primarily makes use of biological indicators (e.g. fish communities, riparian vegetation, aquatic invertebrate fauna) to assess the condition or health of river systems. The rationale for using biological monitoring is that the integrity of biota inhabiting river ecosystems provides a direct, holistic and integrated measure of the integrity or health of the river as a whole.