An Ecotoxicological Approach to Assess the Environmental Quality of Freshwater Basins: A Possible Implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive?

Environments

Bettinetti Roberta¹  Ponti Benedetta² 

[1] DiSTA, University of Insubria, Via Valleggio 11, 22100 Como, Italy;

关键词: sediment ecotoxicity tests;    freshwater ecotoxicity tests;    biomonitoring;    effect-based tools;    organic micropollutants;   

DOI  :  10.3390/environments1010092

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Within the context of the Water Framework Directive, the need to identify new monitoring tools in support of the traditional chemical monitoring process is emerging. Chemical characterization by itself does not provide specific biological information about potential hazards to organisms, in particular when facing cocktails of contaminants. Therefore, ecotoxicity tests can represent a useful tool supporting the chemical information. In the present work, the value of ecotoxicity tests as an effect-based tool for monitoring freshwater and sediment quality of the south-western basin of Lake Como (Northern Italy) was evaluated, assessing the potential risk of pollutants. Results obtained from D. magna toxicity tests showed a temporal variation of toxic response in relation to the variability of organic micropollutant load characteristics of urban rivers. Sediment ecotoxicity test data showed the spatial variability of the sediments’ contamination within the lake, confirmed by chemical analysis of two classes of pollutants (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and polychlorobiphenyls (PCB)). The observed effects on organisms in laboratory tests caused by a mixture of almost unknown chemicals underline the importance of integrating effect-based tools into monitoring efforts.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.