Integrated assessment of the impact of chemical stressors on surface water ecosystems.

The release of chemicals such as chlorinated solvents, pesticides and other xenobiotic organic compounds to streams, either from contaminated sites, accidental or direct application/release, is a significant threat to water resources. In this paper, different methods for evaluating the impacts of chemical stressors on stream ecosystems are evaluated for a stream in Denmark where the effects of major physical habitat degradation can be disregarded. The methods are: (i) the Danish Stream Fauna Index, (ii) Toxic Units (TU), (iii) SPEAR indices, (iv) Hazard Quotient (HQ) index and (v) AQUATOX, an ecological model. The results showed that the hydromorphology, nutrients, biological oxygen demand and contaminants (pesticides and trichloroethylene from a contaminated site) originating from groundwater do not affect the good ecological status in the stream. In contrast, the evaluation by the novel SPEAR(pesticides) index and TU indicated that the site is far from obtaining good ecological status - a direct contradiction to the ecological index currently in use in Denmark today - most likely due to stream sediment-bound pesticides arising from the spring spraying season. In order to generalise the findings of this case study, the HQ index and AQUATOX were extended for additional compounds, not only partly to identify potential compounds of concern, but also to determine thresholds where ecological impacts could be expected to occur. The results demonstrate that some commonly used methods for the assessment of ecological impact are not sufficient for capturing - and ideally separating - the effects of all anthropogenic stressors affecting ecosystems. Predictive modelling techniques can be especially useful in supporting early decisions on prioritising hot spots, serving to identify knowledge gaps and thereby direct future data collection. This case study presents a strong argument for combining bioassessment and modelling techniques to multi-stressor field sites, especially before cost-intensive studies are conducted.

[1]  Haiyi Lu,et al.  Development and Application of Computer Simulation Tools for Ecological Risk Assessment , 2003 .

[2]  W. Brack,et al.  A new risk assessment approach for the prioritization of 500 classical and emerging organic microcontaminants as potential river basin specific pollutants under the European Water Framework Directive. , 2011, The Science of the total environment.

[3]  N. Friberg,et al.  Assessing the Effects of Hydromorphological Degradation on Macroinvertebrate Indicators in Rivers: Examples, Constraints, and Outlook , 2009, Integrated environmental assessment and management.

[4]  D. Hawker,et al.  The number of components in a mixture determines whether synergistic and antagonistic or additive toxicity predominate: the funnel hypothesis. , 1995, Ecotoxicology and environmental safety.

[5]  P. Binning,et al.  Occurrence Of Pesticides In Surface And Groundwater In Two Catchments On Sjælland, Denmark , 2011 .

[6]  B. Kronvang,et al.  Stream habitat structure influences macroinvertebrate response to pesticides. , 2012, Environmental pollution.

[7]  M. Lydy,et al.  Effect of sediment‐associated pyrethroids, fipronil, and metabolites on Chironomus tentans growth rate, body mass, condition index, immobilization, and survival , 2008, Environmental toxicology and chemistry.

[8]  Macroinvertebrate/sediment relationships along a pesticide gradient in Danish streams , 2003 .

[9]  Brian Kronvang,et al.  CHOICE OF SAMPLING STRATEGY AND ESTIMATION METHOD FOR CALCULATING NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS TRANSPORT IN SMALL LOWLAND STREAMS , 1996 .

[10]  M. Feio,et al.  A comparison between biotic indices and predictive models in stream water quality assessment based on benthic diatom communities , 2009 .

[11]  I. Roessink,et al.  Impacts of manipulated regime shifts in shallow lake model ecosystems on the fate of hydrophobic organic compounds. , 2010, Water research.

[12]  D. Walling,et al.  Time-integrated sampling of fluvial suspended sediment: a simple methodology for small catchments , 2000 .

[13]  Morten Lauge Pedersen,et al.  River discharge and local-scale physical habitat influence macroinvertebrate LIFE scores , 2010 .

[14]  David Bedoya,et al.  Linking indices of biotic integrity to environmental and land use variables: multimetric clustering and predictive models. , 2009, Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research.

[15]  K. Yamamoto,et al.  Volatile organic compounds in urban rivers and their estuaries in Osaka, Japan. , 1997, Environmental pollution.

[16]  C. Hickey,et al.  Multiple stressor effects identified from species abundance distributions: Interactions between urban contaminants and species habitat relationships , 2008 .

[17]  F. Périé,et al.  Calibration, validation and sensitivity analysis of an ecosystem model applied to artificial streams. , 2008, Water research.

[18]  Philip John Binning,et al.  An integrated model for assessing the risk of TCE groundwater contamination to human receptors and surface water ecosystems , 2010 .

[19]  H. Albrechtsen,et al.  Vertical small scale variations of sorption and mineralization of three herbicides in subsurface limestone and sandy aquifer. , 2011, Journal of contaminant hydrology.

[20]  M. Liess,et al.  Toxicity of aqueous‐phase and suspended particle‐associated fenvalerate: Chronic effects after pulse‐dosed exposure of Limnephilus lunatus (Trichoptera) , 2001, Environmental toxicology and chemistry.

[21]  Awwa,et al.  Standard Methods for the examination of water and wastewater , 1999 .

[22]  J. Iliopoulou-Georgudaki,et al.  Response of biota to land use changes and water quality degradation in two medium-sized river basins in southwestern Greece , 2010 .

[23]  Richard H. Norris,et al.  Monitoring river health , 2000, Hydrobiologia.

[24]  M. Beketov,et al.  Testing the coherence of several macroinvertebrate indices and environmental factors in a large lowland river system (Volga River, Russia) , 2010 .

[25]  J. A. Camargo,et al.  Ecological and toxicological effects of inorganic nitrogen pollution in aquatic ecosystems: A global assessment. , 2006, Environment international.

[26]  Matthias Liess,et al.  An indicator for effects of organic toxicants on lotic invertebrate communities: Independence of confounding environmental factors over an extensive river continuum. , 2008, Environmental pollution.

[27]  D. Baird,et al.  The Daphnia bioassay: a critique , 1989, Hydrobiologia.

[28]  Dimitra Kitsiou,et al.  Coastal marine eutrophication assessment: a review on data analysis. , 2011, Environment international.

[29]  Oliver A.H. Jones,et al.  Mixtures of similarly acting compounds in Daphnia magna: from gene to metabolite and beyond. , 2010, Environment international.

[30]  M. Lydy,et al.  Residential runoff as a source of pyrethroid pesticides to urban creeks. , 2009, Environmental pollution.

[31]  M. Liess,et al.  Ecotoxicology and macroecology--time for integration. , 2012, Environmental pollution.

[32]  Joan O. Grimalt,et al.  Volatile organic compounds in two polluted rivers in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) , 1991 .

[33]  M. R. Vidal-Abarca,et al.  Comparing the sensitivity of diverse macroinvertebrate metrics to a multiple stressor gradient in Mediterranean streams and its influence on the assessment of ecological status , 2010 .

[34]  Ralf Schulz,et al.  A method for monitoring pesticides bound to suspended particles in small streams , 1996 .

[35]  C. Worthing,et al.  The pesticide manual, a world compendium. , 1979 .

[36]  Richard A. Park,et al.  AQUATOX: Modeling environmental fate and ecological effects in aquatic ecosystems ☆ , 2008 .

[37]  Brian Kronvang,et al.  Buffer strip width and agricultural pesticide contamination in Danish lowland streams: Implications for stream and riparian management , 2011 .

[38]  W. Fisher.  Stream Ecology: Structure and Function of Running Waters , 1995 .

[39]  John L Stoddard,et al.  Setting expectations for the ecological condition of streams: the concept of reference condition. , 2005, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[40]  Matthias Liess,et al.  Thresholds for the effects of pesticides on invertebrate communities and leaf breakdown in stream ecosystems. , 2012, Environmental science & technology.

[41]  Carola A. Schriever,et al.  The footprint of pesticide stress in communities--species traits reveal community effects of toxicants. , 2008, The Science of the total environment.

[42]  C. Townsend,et al.  Subsidy-stress and multiple-stressor effects along gradients of deposited fine sediment and dissolved nutrients in a regional set of streams and rivers , 2011 .

[43]  Werner Brack,et al.  Water quality indices across Europe--a comparison of the good ecological status of five river basins. , 2007, Journal of environmental monitoring : JEM.

[44]  M. Liess,et al.  Acute and Chronic Effects of Particle-Associated Fenvalerate on Stream Macroinvertebrates: A Runoff Simulation Study Using Outdoor Microcosms , 2001, Archives of environmental contamination and toxicology.

[45]  M. Liess,et al.  Analyzing effects of pesticides on invertebrate communities in streams , 2005, Environmental toxicology and chemistry.

[46]  B. Kronvang,et al.  Local physical habitat quality cloud the effect of predicted pesticide runoff from agricultural land in Danish streams. , 2011, Journal of environmental monitoring : JEM.

[47]  J. Pelley.  Restoring our rivers. , 2000, Environmental science & technology.

[48]  George R Hallberg,et al.  Statistical procedures for determination and verification of minimum reporting levels for drinking water methods. , 2006, Environmental science & technology.

[49]  M. Dahl,et al.  European case studies supporting the derivation of natural background levels and groundwater threshold values for the protection of dependent ecosystems and human health. , 2008, The Science of the total environment.

[50]  G. Hose.  Assessing the Need for Groundwater Quality Guidelines for Pesticides Using the Species Sensitivity Distribution Approach , 2005 .

[51]  Sandy Raimondo,et al.  Web-based Interspecies Correlation Estimation (Web-ICE) for Acute Toxicity: User Manual , 2009 .

[52]  M. Hamer,et al.  Partitioning, bioavailability, and toxicity of the pyrethroid insecticide cypermethrin in sediments , 2002, Environmental toxicology and chemistry.

[53]  I. R. Hill.  Aquatic organisms and pyrethroids , 1989 .

[54]  C. D. S. Tomlin,et al.  The pesticide manual: A World compendium. , 2009 .

[55]  Carola A. Schriever,et al.  SPEAR indicates pesticide effects in streams--comparative use of species- and family-level biomonitoring data. , 2009, Environmental pollution.

[56]  Ord,et al.  Guidelines for Ecological Risk Assessment , 2014 .

[57]  S. Larsen,et al.  Stream macroinvertebrate occurrence along gradients in organic pollution and eutrophication , 2009 .

[58]  R. Gillham,et al.  A PCE groundwater plume discharging to a river: influence of the streambed and near-river zone on contaminant distributions. , 2004, Journal of contaminant hydrology.

[59]  H. J. Henriksen,et al.  Assessment of exploitable groundwater resources of Denmark by use of ensemble resource indicators and a numerical groundwater–surface water model , 2008 .

[60]  A. E. Greenberg,et al.  Standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater : supplement to the sixteenth edition , 1988 .

[61]  N. Friberg,et al.  Biological assessment of running waters in Denmark: introduction of the Danish Stream Fauna Index (DSFI) , 2000 .

[62]  K. Siimes,et al.  Effects of pesticides on community structure and ecosystem functions in agricultural streams of three biogeographical regions in Europe. , 2007, The Science of the total environment.

[63]  Werner Brack,et al.  Toward an Integrated Assessment of the Ecological and Chemical Status of European River Basins , 2009, Integrated environmental assessment and management.