James R. Karr and Ellen W. Chu. Island Press, Washington, DC, 1999. 206 pp., illus. $29.95 (ISBN 1-55963-674-2 paper).

Concerned about the continuing decline in the quality of the nation's waters, James R. Karr and Ellen W. Chu have written a book that they hope will encourage effective use of biological data in resource management decision making. They argue that the Clean Water Act has failed to protect the integrity of US aquatic resources because its emphasis on the chemical quality of water fails to address other water quality issues and because some popular engineering practices implemented as a consequence of the act (e.g., chlorination) are ultimately counterproductive. According to Karr and Chu, better resource management will occur when managers have access to tools such as integrated indexes of biological integrity, which allow them to make decisions based on the biological quality of the system. Their book makes a case for more widespread use of integrated indexes and answers critics' concerns about the use of such indexes.

Scientists involved in biomonitoring projects rarely agree on the best way to reduce, present, and interpret their data. Years ago, Karr developed an integrated multimetric index to diagnose fish community health (Karr 1981). That approach, which quickly became a popular assessment tool, was subsequently adopted for use with benthic invertebrates and is now in widespread use by aquatic scientists....