¿What are AMBI y M-AMBI?
AMBI and M-AMBI are internationally recognised biotic indices developed by AZTI to assess the ecological quality of marine environments based on benthic macroinvertebrate communities.
They are fully compatible with the requirements of the European Union’s Water Framework Directive (WFD) and Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and are widely used by environmental agencies, research organisations and consultants around the world.
What challenges do they address?
- The need for robust, standardised scientific tools to assess the ecological status of marine ecosystems.
- The requirement for assessment methods that comply with international environmental legislation and can be applied across different geographical regions.
- The need for reliable, comparable ecological assessments over time and between locations.
How do they work?
- Benthic macroinvertebrate species present within the study area are identified and quantified.
- Each species is classified according to its sensitivity or tolerance to environmental disturbance.
- AMBI calculates an ecological quality classification based on species composition, ranging from High to Bad ecological status.
- M-AMBI complements AMBI by incorporating species richness and diversity metrics, comparing results against reference conditions to determine overall ecological status.
- Both indices can be applied in coastal, estuarine and deep-sea habitats.
Key benefits
- Internationally recognised – adopted as a reference assessment tool in numerous countries and by international organisations.
- Regulatory compliance – aligned with EU environmental legislation and other international regulatory frameworks.
- Global applicability – successfully applied in marine ecosystems worldwide, from polar to tropical regions.
- Scientifically robust – developed and validated by AZTI and extensively reviewed and applied by the international scientific community.
- Proven technology transfer – routinely used in environmental monitoring programmes and marine restoration projects.
Success stories
- Adopted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) as a reference tool for assessing the ecological quality of marine waters.
- Applied in marine monitoring and ecological assessment programmes across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.
Scientific publications
The AMBI methodology has been widely published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is frequently cited as a reference methodology in international technical guidance documents.
