Derivation of aquatic life criteria for four phthalate esters and their ecological risk assessment in Liao River

Abstract

As a critical family of endocrine disruptors, phthalate esters (PAEs) attracted considerable attentions due to increasingly detected worldwide. Aquatic life criteria (ALC) for PAEs are crucial for their accurate ecological risk assessment (ERA) and have seldom been derived before. Given this concern, the purpose of the present study is to optimize the ALCs of four priority PAEs to estimate their ecological risks in Liao River. Reproductive endpoint was found to be more sensitive than other endpoints. Thus, reproduction related toxicity data were screened to derive ALCs applying species sensitivity distribution (SSD) method. ALCs of DEHP, DBP, BBP 2 and DEP were calculated to be 0.04, 0.62, 4.71 and 41.9 μg•L-1 , which indicated decreased toxicity in sequence. Then, the derived ALCs of the four PAEs were applied to estimate their ecological risks in Liao River. A total of 27 sampling sites were selected to detect and analyze the exposure concentrations of PAEs. ERA using the hazard quotient (HQ) method was conducted. The results demonstrated that DEHP exhibited higher risks at 92.6% of sampling sites, and risks posed by DBP were moderate at 63.0% sampling sites. However, risks posed by BBP were low at 70.4% of sampling sites, and there were no risks posed by DEP at 96.3% of sampling sites. The results of probabilistic ecological risk assessment (PERA) indicated that probabilities of exceeding effects thresholds on 5% of species were 60.41%, 0%, 0.12%, 14.28% for DEHP, DEP, BBP and DBP, respectively. The work provides useful information to protect aquatic species in Liao River.

Derivation of Water Quality Criteria for Carbamazepine and Ecological Risk Assessment in the Nansi Lake Basin

“…The toxicity values of carbamazepine varied from 0.91 to 100,000 μg/L, with the mean concentration of 3201 μg/L, and the most and least sensitive specie was Gobiocypris rarus and Raphidocelis subcapitata , respectively [ 40 , 41 ]. In this study, the most used extrapolation model based on Log-logistic was used to construct the SSD curves of carbamazepine [ 42 , 43 , 44 ] ( Figure 3 ). The HC 5 was calculated to be 36.8 ng/L.…”

“…Probabilistic risk assessment methods including MOS 10 and JPC are developed on the basis of qualitative risk assessment methods, which make full use of all pollutant toxicity data and environmental monitoring data and take into account the effects of other factors on aquatic biosafety, such as the concentration distribution of pollutants, the total amount of pollutants, the type of aquatic organisms, as well as species’ susceptibility to contaminants. For the convenience of environmental management, experts and scholars have suggested the use of qualitative and quantitative risk-assessment methods to assess the ecological risk of pollutants [ 44 ].…”

Heavy metal pollution level and potential ecological risk assessment of sludge landfill

“…Therefore, it can be indicated that Zn, As, Pb and Cr come from the same pollution source, and the Hg, Cd and Cu come from the same pollution source, which demonstrated Cd is usually related to specific steel production processes 31,32 . Zn, Cd, Hg and Pb are enormously affected by anthropogenic source such as mining, smelting and other industrial activities 31,32,33,34 . The component 2 explains 24.8% of all the data variation demonstrating strong loadings with Ni, while the component 3 with 17.7% of all the data variation indicating strong loadings with Hg.…”

“…31,32 Zn, Cd, Hg and Pb are enormously affected by anthropogenic source such as mining, smelting and other industrial activities. 31,32,33,34 The component 2 explains 24.8% of all the data variation demonstrating strong loadings with Ni, while the component 3 with 17.7% of all the data variation indicating strong loadings with Hg.…”

Neglect of Temperature and pH Impact Leads to Underestimation of Seasonal Ecological Risk of Ammonia in Chinese Surface Freshwaters

“…Study on water quality criteria is a new research hotspot in China in recent years [35][36][37][38][39]. Based on the sensitivity of Chinese freshwater organisms to ammonia nitrogen, we have proposed China's ammonia nitrogen ALC function in the previous study [31].…”