Criteria for identification and assessing environmental hazards of chemical pollutants

New criteria in order to answer the question were formulated in this paper: is a given chemical substance hazardous to the environment or not? This paper formulated a fundamentally new solution to the problem of selecting criteria for identification and assessing environmental hazards of chemical pollutants, toxicants.

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Reference:
Ostroumov S.A. Anthropogenic effects on the biota: Towards a new system of principles and criteria for analysis of ecological hazards.- Rivista Di Biologia-Biology Forum, 2003, Volume: 96, Issue: 1, Pages: 159-169. 

http://5bio5.blogspot.com/2012/09/ostroumov-sa-anthropogenic-effects-on.html

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Abstract

The currently accepted system of criteria for evaluating environmental and ecological hazards of man-made chemicals (pollutants) is vulnerable to criticism. In this paper, a new concept of the system of approaches towards criteria for evaluating the ecological hazard from man-made impact is proposed. It is suggested to assess the man-made impacts (including effects of pollutants and xenobiotics) on the biota according to the following four levels of disturbance in biological and ecological systems: (1) the level of individual responses; (2) the level of aggregated responses of groups of organisms; (3) the level of stability and integrity of the ecosystem; (4) the level of contributions of the ecosystem to biospheric processes. On the basis of the author's experimental studies, an example is given of how to apply the proposed approach and the system of criteria to the analysis of concrete experimental data. To exemplify the efficiency of the proposed approach, it is shown how to use it to analyze new data on effects of a synthetic surfactant on water filtering by bivalves. It is concluded that the proposed approach will be helpful in better assessing environmental and ecological hazards from anthropogenic effects on biota, including effects of man-made chemicals polluting ecosystems.

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Key words: ecology, bioassay, environmental, hazards, man-made, impacts, anthropogenic, effects, pollutants, xenobiotics, biofiltering, water self-purification, aquatic ecosystems, criteria, system, level, block, approach, analysis, ecological, biota, TX100, Mytilus edulis, mussels, filtration, non-ionic, surfactant, bivalves

 

Ключевые слова: экология, биотестирование, науки об окружающей среде, опасности, связанные с деятельностью человека, последствия, антропогенные,  воздействия, загрязняющие вещества, ксенобиотики, биофильтрация, самоочищение воды, водные экосистемы, критерии, система, уровень, блок, подход, анализ, экологический, биота, TX100, Mytilus edulis, мидии, фильтрация, неионогенные, поверхностно-активное вещество, двустворчатые моллюски

 

 

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