Macrophyte indicators of environmental quality of rivers in Italy at local, regional and geographical scales.

iii) the use of a multi-dimensional set of indicators, inspired to the models of Ellenberg and Hemeroby, running from the water to the shore and backshore; For years, many countries in Europe have been developing indexes that exploit aquatic and riverine plants for expressing the environmental quality of freshwater habitats. The study of macrophyte bioindicators in Italy is much more recent, especially for running waters; ii) a comparison of plant riverine and aquatic communities with macrobenthic communities, as classified by EBI (Extended Biotic Index), in order to distinguish species tolerant and sensitive to pollution; researchers from northern and southern Italy have constituted a group in the framework of SItE (Italian Society of Ecology) aimed at the study of such indexes. First attempts tried to use Central European indexes, but, unfortunately, these indexes appear to not be completely suitable for use in the Mediterranean environment, where the water regime is rather irregular due to climate. The European Directive 2000/60 urged researchers to adapt the macrophyte indicators to Italian contexts. To date, the following approaches have been attempted: i) the application of the primary macrophyte indexes developed at the community level (MTR, IBMR, TIM, MIS and RI) to test their suitability in the Italian context; and iv) the study of the interfaces between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems by means of the QBS-ar index based on soil arthropods.