On Friday May 6 Arastou Gharibi will present his master's thesis in Costal and Marine Management entitled, Ecological quality assessment for Pollurinn (Ísafjörður) by using biotic indices. The presentation will take place at the University Centre conference room at 12.10 and is open to the public.

Arastou‘s advisor is Dr. Þorleifur Eiríksson, manager of the Westfjords Natural History Institute in Bolungarvík. The external reader is Dr. Jörundur Svavarsson, prófessor in Marine Biology at the University of Iceland.

Abstract
Assessment of impacts is a fundamental element in environmental management and ecological indices are tools commonly used in this matter. Diversity indices such as Shannon-Weaver were commonly used for estimating these impacts. New developed biotic indices; AMBI and M-AMBI were applied for the first time as indicators of anthropogenic disturbances in Pollurinn of Skutulsfjörður (Ísafjordur) according to the European Water Framework criteria. The benthic macro-faunal community were studied to answer these questions: 1-What is the environmental health status in Pollurinn area? 2-Has the environmental health changed between the two sampling years? To answer these questions two sets of data from Náttúrustofa Vestfjarða study were used. Sampling regarding this study were conducted in 1997 and repeated in 2010. Indices delivered similar health classifications, categorizing sample stations between moderate and good. M-AMBI was used as the main indicator and its results showed: 1-Moderate health quality for the habitats close to the sewage outlets and good health quality for the central parts of Pollurinn and 2- About 21% quality deterioration in the area adjacent to the sewage outlets and about 10% improvement in central parts of the Pollurinn area.