A Brief Overview of the Development of the ES–HIPPO Model for Assessing the Sustainability and Conservation Priorities of Fish, Fish Resources, and Inland Water Habitats

Abstract

This chapter contains a brief overview of the development of models for assessing the sustainability and conservation priorities for fish, fish resources, and inland water habitats in Serbia and the region. The basic version of the ES–HIPPO model consists of two elements. The first, Ecological Specialization (ES), reflects the level of taxon specialization in relation to habitat, diet, reproduction strategy, life cycle, body size, degree of endemism, and degree of isolation. The second factor, "HIPPO", refers to the impact of factors such as H- habitat alterations, I- invasive species, P- pollution, P- human population growth, and O- overexploitation on populations in the spatial and temporal dimensions. From the general model, advanced models were developed: ES–HIPPOfish intended for assessing the viability of fish species that are important for fishing, ES–HIPPOcrayfish to assess the sustainability of decapod crustacean populations, and the latest version of ESEHIPPOriverbasin to assess the degree of habitat conservation for a sustainable fish community in a river basin.