Prospects for combining chemical and biological methods for integrated environmental assessment

Abstract Inherently interdisciplinary, environmental assessment applied to contamination is evolving rapidly, despite associated uncertainties in methodologies and data limitations. Mixtures of known and unknown pollutants can cause toxic effects in the environment. Besides deploying a chemicals-driven strategy for the ecological risk assessment of the pollutants, it is necessary to apply and to explore biological strategies. Consequently, bioassays, biosensors and effect-directed analysis (EDA) to identify pollutants responsible of particular effects have become increasingly important. We give a broad overview of how to assess biological monitoring of ecosystems and chemical monitoring of priority and specific substances involved in environmental contamination. We describe bioanalytical tools and address the need to integrate and to combine them with chemical tools. We also describe the requirement for EDA in field monitoring and risk assessment of pollutants. We critically review the literature and present generalized strategies for characterizing environmental contamination, and detecting and categorizing toxicological problems. Last, but not least, we outline the prospects for combining chemical and biological methods for integrated environmental assessment.