Ecological risk assessment of agrochemicals in European estuaries

Abstract

Abstract-The Fluxes of Agrochemicals into the Marine Environment (FAME) project, which was funded by the European Union, studied the presence and fate of pesticides in major European river/estuary systems. As part of the cooperation within FAME, samples from four rivers were sent to all participants. Each laboratory analyzed the samples with a range of techniques, thus creating a database that could not have been developed through individual efforts. In the present study, compounds are identified that are important to the contamination of the marine environment on the basis of their environmental concentrations and toxicological properties. Two risk assessment methods are used. The toxic unit method, which provides a first indication of the relative contribution of compounds to the total toxicity of a sample, and the inverse method of Van Straalen and Denneman, which has been used to assess the ecological risk of a selected set of compounds (i.e., atrazine, simazine, alachlor, and metolachlor). Environmental concentrations of these target compounds were determined at different seasons during a period of at least 1 year and, hence, variations in ecological risk patterns for different European river/estuary systems could be identified. The application of the risk assessment procedures is hampered by a lack of toxicological data. It is concluded, however, that pesticides exert a significant pressure on the aquatic system. To our knowledge, this is the first joint study in which the ecological risks of modern pesticides related to different European river/estuary systems are compared.

Ecological Risk Assessment of Organochlorine Pesticides in Surface Waters of Lake Taihu, China

“…As seen in Figure 2, the ecological risks were moderate for crustaceans and insects in all of the study bays, while they were low for fish and negligible for phytoplankton. These results are in accordance with those of previous studies that showed that crustaceans and insects are more vulnerable to the OCPs than algae (Brix et al 2001;Steen et al 1999). This may be explained by the fact that the detected OCPs were insecticides that primarily act on the nervous system of organisms by interdicting the neuron conduction procedure.…”

Ecological Risk Assessment of Agricultural Pesticides throughout the Shadegan Wetland, Iran

“…The mean and the standard deviation of the in-transformed dataset of a number of toxicity end points (LC 50 or EC 50 ) of a specific pesticide were used to estimate the parameters which describe the distribution. From this distribution, in order to protect 95 % of species, the hazardous concentration for 5% of the species (HC 5 ) in an ecosystem was calculated using the following model based on species sensitivity distributions (Aldenberg and Slob, 1993;Steen et al, 1999;Wang et al, 2008).…”

Ecological Risk Assessment of Pesticide Residues in Agricultural Lake : Risk Quotients and Probabilistic Approach

“…호소 수역 내 검출된 잔류농약의 농도분포와 수생 종들의 독성반응에 대한 분포 자료에 근거하여 확률론적 생태위해성 평가를 수행하였다 (Steen et al, 1999;Hela et al, 2005). (Steen et al, 1999).…”

“…독성평가는 농약의 노출에 기인한 수생 종 들의 독성참고치 (50% 치사농도; LC50, 50% 유효농도; EC50, 무관찰영향농도; NOEC)를 나타낸다. 이를 근거로 가장 간단 한 위해성평가는 위해지수 (risk quotient; RQ) 방법으로 첫 번째 평가단계 (tier I)에 해당되며, 가장 보수적이고 불확실 성이 가장 큰 방법이다 (Steen et al, 1999). 이러한 결정론 적인 평가방법은 위해성을 정량할 수 없기 때문에, 이를 극복 하기 위한 확률론적인 위해성평가 방법을 사용한다.…”