Ten challenges for improved ecotoxicological testing in environmental risk assessment

Our recent history shows that degradation of aquatic ecosystems essentially stems from industrialization, urbanization and increasing human populations. After a first industrial boom in the late 19 th century, contamination pressures on receiving waters now appear to be continual because of expanding economies and technologies developing at the planetary scale. Given the diversity of issues, problems and challenges facing water quality today because of complex waste and chemical discharges into waterways, aquatic ecotoxicology has blossomed with time into a more mature discipline of the environmental sciences. Its two fundamental pillars, bioassays and biomarkers, have become essential tools that allow the determination of numerous and versatile effects measurements. Herein, we demonstrate some of the ways in which these tools have been applied and how they have evolved over the past decades to appraise the ecotoxicity of contaminants impacting aquatic systems. Examples discussed are largely reflective of work conducted in the Environment Canada (EC) laboratories (SaintLawrence Centre, Montréal, Canada). Success stories include improvement of industrial effluent quality contributing to beluga whale population recovery in the Saint-Lawrence River, biomarker field studies conducted with endemic and caged bivalves to more fully comprehend urban effluent adverse effects, and increased discernment on the hazard potential posed by emerging classes of chemicals. Ecotoxicology continues to be confronted with diverse issues and needs related to a myriad of chemical contaminants released to aquatic environments worldwide. To cope with these, ecotoxicology will have to bank on new tools (e.g., toxicogenomics, bio-informatics, modeling) and become more interdisciplinary by taking into account knowledge provided by other disciplines (e.g., ecology, chemistry, climatology, microbiology) in order to more fully understand and adequately interpret hazard. This will be paramount to supply regulators and legislators with the sound and scientifically valid information needed in order to mitigate environmental degradation.

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“…Figure 4 lists some of these (self-explanatory) demands that have been persuasively described in recent publications. [68][69][70] …”

Section: Issues and Needs Confronting Ecotoxicology Todaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Aquatic ecotoxicology: what has been accomplished and what lies ahead? An Eastern Canada historical perspective

Blaise

Gagné

2013

J Xenobiotics

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“…Reliable tools are needed to enable decision makers to apply conditions under which this tradeoff could be optimized in order to ensure a sustainable use and management of ecosystems and resources. This is clearly a new challenge, and in this respect, long-term and evolutionary ecotoxicology represents a building block of such a strategy, providing concepts and tools with both indicative and predictive value, that could be implemented in environmental risk assessment (see also Breitholtz et al 2006;Bickham 2011).…”

Section: Long-term Effects Of Pollutants: Inferring Causative Relatiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Special issue on long-term ecotoxicological effects: an introduction

Coutellec

Barata

2013

Ecotoxicology

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“…In the future, it is therefore important to increase research efforts to elucidate potential consequences of varying physical and chemical environmental factors for toxicity of a wide range of chemical substances, in order to develop tools for hazard identification and dose-response assessment that include scientifically well-based combinations of species, endpoints and environmental factors. The battery of endpoints to select from should, as far as possible, comprise population level data (Forbes and Calow 1999, Forbes et al 2001, Breitholtz et al 2006a, possibly obtained by using population models.…”

Section: Suggestions For Improvements Of Reachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this context it is important to improve the analysis of the extent to which sensitive organisms and ecosystems in such areas may need specific test methods and specific concern in environmental risk assessment of chemicals (Breitholtz et al 2006a). In the future, it is therefore important to increase research efforts to elucidate potential consequences of varying physical and chemical environmental factors for toxicity of a wide range of chemical substances, in order to develop tools for hazard identification and dose-response assessment that include scientifically well-based combinations of species, endpoints and environmental factors.…”

Section: Suggestions For Improvements Of Reachmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving the Value of Standard Toxicity Test Data in REACH

Breitholtz

Lundström

Dahl

et al. 2010

Regulating Chemical Risks

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Worldwide, environmental risk assessment strategies are based on the assumption that measuring direct effects of single substances, using a few single species tests, in combination with safety factors correcting for extrapolation inconsistencies, can be used to protect higher levels of biological organization, such as populations and even ecosystems. At the same time, we are currently facing a range of pollution problems (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Series 2005), of which some could at least indirectly be linked to the fact that this assumption may not be fully valid. Consequently, there is an ongoing scientific debate on whether current chemical control protocols are sufficient for protection of ecosystems, and numerous suggestions for improvements have been presented by the scientific community, e.g. alternative tests and testing strategies. On the other hand, few of these suggestions actually reach the regulatory world (or become implemented), and risk assessment today basically follows the same paradigm as 30 years ago. While the new REACH regime is exceptionally ambitious, this chapter observes several problems and gaps in this regulatory framework. We suggest measures and approaches which imply increased ecological realism and understanding in future regulatory work.

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Ten challenges for improved ecotoxicological testing in environmental risk assessment

Cited by 127 publications

References 103 publications

Aquatic ecotoxicology: what has been accomplished and what lies ahead? An Eastern Canada historical perspective

Aquatic ecotoxicology: what has been accomplished and what lies ahead? An Eastern Canada historical perspective

Special issue on long-term ecotoxicological effects: an introduction

Improving the Value of Standard Toxicity Test Data in REACH

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