Environmental policies increasingly emphasise the need to protect, rather than to use, the ability of ecosystems to recover from disturbances. This necessitates the adoption of response measurements to quantify ecological condition and monitor ecological change. Response monitoring focuses on properties that are essential to the sustainability of the ecosystem. These monitoring tools can be used to establish natural ranges of ecological change within ecosystems, as well as to conceptually quantify acceptable and unacceptable ranges of change.

Following a worldwide trend, a monitoring programme is being developed for assessing the ecological conditions of rivers in South Africa. The approach followed for the design of the River Health Programme (RHP) consists of several phases. The main considerations that influenced the design of this programme, as well as the rationale that led to its initiation, are discussed in this paper.

In: Gerhardt, A. (Editor) (1999) Biomonitoring of Polluted Water. Environmental Research Forum Vol. 9, pp. 13-32. Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

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