Towards an integrated approach to classifying and evaluating rivers in the UK

Traditional, parallel approaches to ecological and environmental monitoring of UK rivers have produced a coincident series of field survey, classification and evaluation methods. Each method has been developed for a specific purpose, but most include a common set of recorded attributes. 2. The recent move towards integrated river basin management, which supports the principles of sustainable development and enhancing biodiversity, provides a unifying purpose for classifying and evaluating rivers. 3. Agreed technical standards, protocols and terminologies are basic requirements needed to ensure that there is greater collective use of data and to encourage convergence of classification and evaluation methods as aids to more efficient integrated river basin management.