Aquatic biomonitoring is an important tool for assessing aquatic life forms and their habitats. It can reveal the overall health and status of the ecosystem, detect environmental trends and the impacts of different stressors, and can be used to evaluate the effect that various human activities have on the overall health of aquatic environments. Water pollution and general stresses to aquatic life have a major impact on the environment. The main sources of pollution to oceans, rivers, and lakes are human caused events or activities, such as sewage, oil spills, surface runoff, littering, ocean mining, and nuclear waste.
Monitoring aquatic life can also be beneficial in monitoring and understanding adjacent land ecosystems. Rapid changes to an environment, like, pollution, can alter ecosystems and community assemblages, and endanger species that live in or close to water. Many aquatic species serve as food sources for terrestrial species, which are therefore impacted by the size and health of aquatic populations.