How does the State of the Rivers Survey link physical and chemical features with the biota?
The State of the Rivers Survey was designed to ‘estimate the ecological condition [of rivers] in terms of the condition of the instream habitat, rather than by conducting flora or faunal surveys’ (Anderson, 1993a, p6). As such, the State of the Rivers Survey primarily makes a detailed assessment of components that describe the physical condition of streams, such as channel habitat, bed condition, bank condition, cross-sectional dimension and riparian vegetation (Table 2.6.1). Anderson (1993a) recognised that habitat attributes of general importance to the biota were encompassed by these components. Many of the variables measured in the State of the Rivers Survey correspond with those measured in AusRivAS (see Section 2.2), RHS (see Section 2.8) and Habitat Predictive Modelling (see Section 2.7). Therefore, many of the empirical links between biota and habitat that are encompassed within other methods, are potentially represented by the variables collected in the State of the Rivers Sur
