A Scientometric Analysis of the Use Indices for Water Quality Biomonitoring

Water resources are supplied under strong anthropic pressures and result in several problems of water contamination in the world, which necessitates the use of methodologies for their evaluation. Thus, this research aimed to identify the biomonitoring indices based on macroinvertebrates in the evaluation of the quality of the water used and to identify its application trends. The study was developed through a scientometric review over a 20-year period (2000–2020). The search consisted of articles indexed in the Scielo, ScienceDirect, and Scopus databases, based on the keywords “biotic index” * OR “aquatic macroinvertebrates” * OR “benthic macroinvertebrates” * OR “Biomonitoring” * AND “water quality.” Selection, such as inclusion and exclusion, was applied in the Start program (State of the Art through Systematic Review-Start). The results showed that the EPT index (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera) was the most used among all researched databases (20%), and among the Ecological Indicators journals from which the largest number of publications were obtained (11%). Regarding the indices used in biomonitoring research, the ASPT index (average score per taxon) was the only one with a tendency to increase in use over the years (R² = 0.29; p < 0.05). Although the biomonitoring indices are commonly used worldwide denoting that it is still an alternative tool, this literature review showed that among the indices only one has a trend of use, which must be considered for further research.