Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management最新文献

Estimates of ambient background concentrations in surface waters, referred to as natural background concentrations (NBCs) in European guidance documents, may be an important factor in determining whether a monitoring site meets the legally binding Environmental Quality Standard (EQS) when assessing naturally occurring substances. Here, we focus on utilizing routine regulatory surface water monitoring data to provide risk assessors and environmental practitioners with a transparent, implementable, repeatable, and resource-effective approach to estimate NBCs. The methodology does not use additional environmental sampling beyond that which is routine or require advanced statistical methods, or the incorporation of highly specialist, and not always readily accessible, local knowledge. It determines both whether a site is suitable for NBC assessment as well as the identification of suitable surrogate sites and local NBCs using 11 criteria: six for identifying if a site is suitable for NBC correction, and five for identifying suitable surrogate sites for local NBC values. The criteria consider both the extent of any EQS exceedance, after accounting for bioavailability in line with the European guidance and potential anthropogenic impacts at the site, and can be applied in a simple sequential procedure. The method has been applied to derive NBCs for nickel on three case-study countries—Cyprus, France, and Spain—to determine its useability and impact on compliance. The methodology presented addresses a gap in the current guidance regarding the practical and consistent implementation of NBCs and could be applied to other naturally occurring substances in an EQS or Water Quality Guideline compliance assessment process. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:2128–2141. © 2024 WCA Environment Ltd and NiPERA Inc. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

The urgency of protecting ecosystems and their recovery from contamination has been highlighted in several recent European strategies because Europe's biodiversity and landscapes are declining rapidly due to different human pressures. Despite the existence of EU and national laws addressing environmental contamination, practical procedures are often missing. For example, competent authorities must deal promptly and effectively with environmental accidents, noncompliance, and criminal offenses but relevant tools that facilitate these processes are often lacking. For example, thorough planning is crucial for effective investigation and assessment to improve environmental damage assessments in line with the European Environmental Liability Directive (ELD, 2004/35/EC). With regard to soils, a specific European legislation for their protection, the European Soil Monitoring Law, is currently being developed. However, it is crucial that this law bridges the gaps between existing chemical regulations and that it aligns with current European strategies for environmental protection and sustainability. Continuous feedback of soil monitoring results to regulatory frameworks will be essential. This feedback loop ensures that chemical regulations are relevant and effective in protecting soil health. In this context, development and sharing of effective and practical procedures for recovering ecosystems from contamination are crucial. This was the case at the RemTech Europe meeting, which was held online and onsite in Ferrara, Italy, in September 2022. The discussion covered all aspects of environmental contaminants. It ranged from the basic understanding of these contaminants to the various types that pose a threat to organisms, studies of their environmental fate, detection methods, and sustainable practices for contaminant management. The special series dedicated to RemTech Europe 2022 is particularly relevant to these purposes and resulted in six articles that were selected from oral presentations. The articles emphasize the need for integrated approaches to risk management and remediation to address the problems of soil, sediment, and groundwater contamination. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:1982–1986. © 2024 The Author(s). Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

A flexible approach is described for incorporating a weight-of-evidence (WoE) methodology into a tiered ecological risk assessment (ERA)/management framework for chemicals. The approach is oriented toward informing decisions about chemicals. Communication is regarded as a critical component of the risk assessment process. The paper resulted from insights gained from seven ERA workshops held by SETAC (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, www.setac.org) in the Asia-Pacific, African, and Latin American regions. Formal ERA methods are not fully developed or applied in many of these countries and assessments often begin with tables of risk values and test methods from countries where ERA is already implemented. While appropriate and sometimes necessary, workshop participants had questions about the reliability and relevance of using this information for regionally specific ecosystems with different receptors, fate processes, and exposure characteristics. The idea that an assessment of reliability and relevance of available information and the need for additional information was necessary at an early stage of the assessment process was considered. The judgment of reliability and relevance is central to WoE approaches along with the identification of information needs and the integration of such information. The need to engage in WoE considerations early and throughout the assessment process indicates that a tiered approach is appropriate for unifying the evaluation process in a consistent way from early screening-level steps to later more involved evaluations. The approach outlined in this article is complementary to WoE guidance developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and many national guidance documents. To link assessments of risk to management decisions, emphasis is given to communications at each tier between the risk assessor (technical side) and the decision-makers (policy and regulatory side). Tools and information sources are suggested for each tier and suggestions are meant to be illustrative and not prescriptive. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:2312–2325. © 2024 SETAC

The study of the variability of soil gas concentrations is crucial for defining effective monitoring and remediation strategies and for the risk assessment related to the emission of vapors from the subsurface. The traditional soil gas monitoring strategy consists of seasonal surveys based on short-time-averaged sampling. Soil gas monitoring results are often used to assess the risk associated with the emission of volatile contaminants from the subsurface, using models mainly based on molecular diffusion and therefore assuming continuous emission from the soil. At two contaminated sites located in the Veneto region (Italy), continuous monitoring using a photoionization detector, pressure gauges, and an ultrasonic anemometer was used to relate soil gas variability to surface and subsurface physical parameters. At both sites a cyclic diurnal variation of volatile organic compounds concentration in soil gas was observed, correlated with the variation of several meteorological parameters and in particular with the variation of the differential pressure between soil and atmosphere and the buoyancy vertical flux. These findings question the reliability of the conventional methodology employed in the collection and assessment of soil gas data. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:2023–2032. © 2024 SETAC

The assessment of pesticide risks to bees in North America currently relies in part on Tier 1 honey bee laboratory toxicity studies to support the registration and registration review processes for crop protection chemicals. For immature stages, the studies follow two standardized test designs recommended by the Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD), evaluating acute (seven-day single-dose, TG OECD 237) and chronic (22-day repeated-dose, GD OECD 239) toxicity in bee larvae. In this article, we aim to evaluate the current approach for generating and interpreting honey bee larval toxicity data, enhancing pesticide risk assessment for pollinators. First, by considering that the repeated-dose larval study covers all stages of honey bee brood development up to adult emergence, we compared endpoints (larval LD/ED50 and LC/EC50 values) from seven-day acute exposure studies with the 22-day chronic exposure studies. Our goal was to identify the study design offering greater sensitivity in assessing pesticide toxicity to immature bees. Our second objective involved analyzing available weight data from emerged adults and comparing it to survival endpoints (e.g., NOEL and LD50) to determine if the weight after adult emergence would accurately represent a sensitive indicator of pesticide effects on developing honey bees. Our analysis determined that the use of a single 22-day chronic exposure study adequately covers all immature stages and that the toxicity values based on cumulative dose are more accurate and representative measures of exposure for immature bees than using endpoints based on estimated daily doses. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that measuring the weight of emerged adults was a more sensitive indicator than mortality of treatment-related effects in 22% of the compounds included in our analysis. Here we also discuss the importance of standardized protocols for proper collection of weight after emergence and the need for further discussion on the relevance of this parameter at risk assessment scheme. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:2283–2293. © 2024 Pollinator Research Task Force. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) accumulate at the air–water interface of the surface microlayer (SML) on marine and freshwater bodies. In order to determine if including the SML when sampling bulk surface water leads to a high bias in measured PFAS concentrations, a pilot study and a full field study were conducted. The pilot study conducted at two sites was aimed at determining the analytical precision and small-scale (~1 m) spatial variability in concentrations of PFAS in bulk water and the SML. The full field study was performed at 11 sites, where three commonly used bulk surface water sampling methods were compared: (1) a peristaltic pump with tubing that excludes the SML, (2) a fully submerged sample bottle that excludes the SML, and (3) a partially submerged sample bottle that allows inclusion of the SML. The SML was sampled using the glass plate method. The samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. The pilot study indicated that sampling variation was greater than analytical variation (although Levene's tests indicated that the differences were not statistically significant) and that relatively small differences in the mean concentration among sampling methods could be detected. The full investigation indicated that there was no evidence of high bias of PFAS concentrations in bulk surface water resulting from inclusion of SML using the partially submerged bottle sampling method. Unexpectedly, there was evidence that samples collected using the partially submerged bottle had slightly lower PFAS concentrations, particularly for less hydrophobic PFAS, than bulk water samples that excluded the SML. Additionally, the PFAS enrichment factor in the SML increased with increasing retention time, although the increase was not evident at all sampling sites for all PFAS. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:2271–2282. © 2024 SETAC

Foraging provides a multitude of individual, social, and environmental benefits. With green spaces decreasing in the United Kingdom, there is an opportunity for roadside verges to become valuable foraging resources; however, there is public concern over the safety of roadside forage. Human ingestion of heavy metal contaminants, such as copper (Cu), lead (Pb), and cadmium (Cd), originating from traffic activity, induces toxic effects in the body. Therefore, maximum Cu, Pb, and Cd guideline limits for human consumption in small fruits were established. However, studies of heavy metal concentrations in roadside forage and the effects of surface washing on concentrations are limited. This study examined Cu, Pb, and Cd in washed and unwashed wild blackberries (Rubus fruticose L.) along a main road in Kent, UK, and compares the values with maximum guideline limits. In all 44 samples, Cu, Pb and Cd concentrations were well below the maximum guideline limit or daily reference intake (RI) value. Cu and Pb concentrations were below the maximum daily intake in every sample if foragers eat one portion (80 g) of berries a day, but consuming a larger quantity of berries per day (e.g., 1 kg) could lead to an intake above the guideline limit for Cu (1 mg) and Pb (0.1 mg), but not Cd (0.03 mg). Washing did not significantly reduce the concentrations of Cu (p = 0.174) or Cd (p = 0.752) in blackberries, but did significantly reduce the Pb concentration (p < 0.001). However, Pb concentration was below maximum guideline limits for every sample regardless of washing treatment. Thus, wild blackberries collected from the roadside were suitable for human consumption, although the findings are not representative of all foraged berries or road networks. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:2107–2115. © 2024 The Author(s). Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

The textile industry is under pressure to adopt sustainable production methods because its contribution to global warming is expected to rise by 50% by 2030. One solution is to increase the use of recycled raw material. The use of recycled raw material must be considered holistically, including its environmental and economic impacts. This study examined eight scenarios for sustainable denim fabric made from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fiber, conventional PET fiber, and cotton fiber. The evaluation based on the distance from average solution (EDAS) multicriteria decision-making method was used to rank scenarios according to their environmental and economic impacts, which are assessed using life cycle assessment and life cycle costing. Allocation, a crucial part of evaluating the environmental impact of recycled products, was done using cut-off and waste value. Life cycle assessments reveal that recycled PET fiber has lower freshwater ecotoxicity and fewer eutrophication and acidification impacts. Cotton outperformed PET fibers in human toxicity. Only the cut-off method reduces potential global warming with recycled PET. These findings indicated that recycled raw-material life cycle assessment requires allocation. Life cycle cost analysis revealed that conventional PET is less economically damaging than cotton and recycled PET. The scenarios were ranked by environmental and economic impacts using EDAS. This ranking demonstrated that sustainable denim fabric production must consider both economic and environmental impacts. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:2347–2365. © 2024 The Author(s). Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

Pollution of the natural environment by microplastics has become a global issue in ecosystems as it poses a potential long-term threat to biota. Microplastics can accrue in high abundances in sediments of aquatic ecosystems while also contaminating pelagic filter feeders, which could transfer pollutants up trophic webs. We assess the abundance and distribution of microplastics in benthic sediments and Cladocera taxa in a subtropical Austral reservoir using a combination of geospatial techniques, physicochemical analyses, diversity indices, and multivariate statistics between two seasons (i.e., hot–wet and cool–dry). We found particularly high densities of microplastics during the cool–dry season for both sediments (mean 224.1 vs. 189 particles kg^–1 dry weight) and Cladocera taxa (0.3 particles per individual). Cladocera microplastic shapes were dominated by fibers with high densities of the transparent color scheme. Pearson correlation results indicated that sediment microplastic abundances were negatively correlated with chlorophyll–a concentration, temperature, and resistivity, whereas they were positively correlated with pH and salinity during the hot–wet season, with no variables significant in the cool–dry season. Cladocera microplastic abundances were positively correlated with conductivity and salinity during the cool–dry season, but no variables in the hot–wet season. These findings provide insights into the role of reservoirs as microplastic retention sites and the potential for uptake and transfer from lower trophic groups. These insights can be used to strengthen future monitoring and intervention strategies. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:2256–2270. © 2024 SETAC