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How these various metrics differ in their analytical approachand their applicability for regular monitoring is detailed elsewhere(Srivastava et al., 2013). For this discussion,we focus on how they differin their relationship to harmful impacts. First, the metrics differ in the type of harm they best represent. For instance, microcystin is mostclosely linked to harm to human and/or ecosystem health via toxicity,whereas surface scumis most closely linked to harmto aesthetic qualityand/or light availability. Second, the metrics differ in how directly theycapture the link to the specific harm. For example, the link fromremotely-sensed metrics to harm is indirect (Fig. 1), because theconnection depends on how representative the captured informationis of toxicity and/or aesthetic impairments. Similarly, qualitative metricssuch as the presence of surface scum can be linked to higher toxinconcentrations (Falconer et al., 1999) and therefore to harm to humanand/or ecosystem health (Fig. 1). However, surface scum is not alwaysassociated with high toxin levels and therefore is only indirectly tiedto that harmful impact. Third, the linkage between some types ofmetrics and harm is sometimes not made explicitly in specific studies,but rather implicitly. Explicit thresholds exist for relating some metricsto harm in the form of impacts on human health (e.g., Falconer et al.,1999), but this is not the case for each harm/metric combination. Forinstance, remotely-sensed phycocyanin is linked to harm to humanhealth because phycocyanin is associated with cyanobacteria, andMicrocystis has been the dominant cyanobacterial genus historically.As some strains of Microcystis are toxic, remotely-sensed phycocyaninhas therefore implicitly been linked to potential harm to humanand/or ecosystem health in some papers (e.g., Vincent et al., 2004).Indirect linkage to harm is often, but not always, associated with thelinkage also being implicit rather than explicit (Fig. 1). Parsing out theassumptions underlying the use of a particular metric makes it possibleto pinpoint the type of harm being considered, the directness of thelinkage between the metric and the harm, and the explicitness of thatlinkage.
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