Aquatic Toxicology: Concepts, Practice, New Directions

Abstract

This chapter presents a broad overview of the principles, practice and some of the new developments in aquatic toxicology. The field has matured rapidly over the past 30‐40 years. Many acute and chronic toxicity testing methods have been developed and standardized for application in environmental protection. Basic research has been conducted with many species across the aquatic phyla, with a wide range of contaminants. Critical linkages have been made to other aquatic disciplines ensuring that a comprehensive understanding of exposure, uptake, metabolism and discharge of chemicals, in many aquatic species under many conditions, is fully realized. New issues, such as the effects of pharmaceuticals, are being investigated with urgency. Aquatic toxicology is now supported in many countries by a wide range of research programmes, graduate programmes, training courses and publications, assuring its place in basic and applied toxicology.

Surface Water under Growing Anthropogenic Loads: From Global Perspectives to Regional Implications

“…It is widely known that many newly synthesized compounds are highly toxic to living organisms. It is also known that industrial byproducts and many naturally occurring elements in atypically high concentrations, for example, the essential metals, such as Cu and Zn, are also toxic to living organisms [67][68][69][70]. Aquatic systems are collectors of all toxic elements and compounds known to occur in the environment, and the implications and consequences of this phenomenon are still not fully understood because they may manifest their hazardous properties even if occurring in low concentrations.…”

“…In these situations, disturbances are slowly (and often imperceptibly) accumulated in the aquatic organisms and may manifest themselves with the passage of time or in some critical situations, for example, when the temperature is anomalously high, during rain flooding, at stormy weather, etc. [68]. Chronic effects are more difficult to identify in spatiotemporal sections, and their identification requires long-term observations of the organisms, populations (during a few iterations), and communities.…”