Occurrence and elimination of pharmaceuticals during conventional wastewater treatment -- Bioavailability of organic contaminants in freshwater environments -- The use of attached microbial communities to assess ecological risks of pollutants in river ecosystems -- The use of photosynthetic fluorescence parameters from autotrophic biofilms for monitoring the effect of chemicals in river ecosystems -- Consistency in diatom response to metal-contaminated environments -- Advances in the multi-biomarker approach for risk assessment in aquatic ecosystems -- How to link field observations with causality? Field and experimental approaches linking chemical pollution with ecological alterations -- Evaluating ecological integrity in multi-stressed rivers: from the currently used biotic indices to newly developed approaches using biofilms and invertebrate -- Comparing chemical and ecological status in Catalan rivers. Analysis of river quality status following the Water Framework Directive.

The enduring changes in the aquatic environment and the increasing influx of contaminants call for novel conceptual and methodological approaches to relating chemical pollution and ecological alterations in ecosystems. This volume highlights the latest advances concerning the sampling, analyses, occurrence, bioavailability, and effects of emerging and priority pollutants in European rivers, the current status of the River Management Plans in Europe, and the applicability of the newly developed techniques for water monitoring purposes. The topics are discussed in the context of the EU Water Framework Directive, evaluating their shortcomings and providing a basis for doing away with them. Linking scientific research and river management practices, this book is an invaluable source of information for environmental chemists, aquatic scientists, ecologists and water managers.