Biological pollution is the impact of humanity's actions on the quality of aquatic and terrestrial environment. Specifically, biological pollution is the introduction of non-indigenous and invasive species.
Biopollution may cause adverse effects at several levels of biological organization:
Biopollution may also cause decline in naturalness of nature conservation areas, adverse economic consequences and impacts on human health. The notion of "biological pollution" and "biological pollutants" described by Elliott is generally accepted in invasion biology; it was used to develop the concept of biopollution level assessment and criteria for a Good Ecological Status descriptor in the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive
The magnitude of the bioinvasion impact or biopollution level may be quantified using a free online service BINPAS. In 1991 The Indiana Academy of Science held a national cross disciplinary conference in Indianapolis, the first of its find dealing with the issue.
Biopollution level
"Biopollution Level " is a quantitative measure of the magnitude of the biological invasion impact, ranging from "no impact" through "weak", "moderate", "strong" and "massive" impact.
Initially the method of calculation involves assessing the abundance and distribution range of a non-indigenous species for a specific area. Abundance of a NIS may be ranked as "low", "moderate" or "high"; and the distribution may be scored as "one locality", "several localities", "many localities" or "all localities" native communities, 2) habitats and, 3) ecosystem functioning. The calculation is based on ecological concepts, e.g. "key species", "type specific communities", "habitat alteration, fragmentation and loss", "functional groups", "food web shift", etc. Calculations are for a stated time period to enable assessment of temporal changes.
The method can be used for a single species or for several species for a specific area. The method was designed for species in aquatic ecosystems but is currently being tested for terrestrial environments and there is a free on-line service .
The biopollution level enables quantification of an impact in a robust manner in a standard and repeatable way. It makes it possible for comparison between different regions and taxonomic groups at different time intervals. The most impacting biota can be readily distinguished for a given region. It does not evaluate whether an impact effect is either good or bad, it states the change in an ecosystem due to an alien species invasion and measures the magnitude of this change. However, the method requires adequate information in order to obtain the magnitude of the impact, assessed at three levels of confidence according to the quality of the data available.
The method is simple to undertake and provide a means of quantifying impacts within any world region. Some assessments have been published.
This is a free online system that calculates the magnitude of the biological invasion impact or biopollution level.
translates the existing data on miscellaneous invasive alien species impacts on population, community, habitat or ecosystem into uniform biopollution measurement units. The service is free of charge and available at for anyone interested in biological invasions. Experts willing to perform the assessment for their studied regions are welcome to register and compile the information as contributors.
