Abstract
Many jurisdictions around the globe have well-developed regulatory frameworks for the derivation and implementation of water quality guidelines (WQGs) or their equivalent (e.g. environmental quality standards, criteria, objectives or limits). However, a great many more still do not have such frameworks and are looking to introduce practical methods to manage chemical exposures in aquatic ecosystems. There is a potential opportunity for learning and sharing of data and information between experts from different jurisdictions in order to deliver efficient and effective methods to manage potential aquatic risks, including the considerable reduction in the need for aquatic toxicity testing and the rapid identification of common challenges. This paper reports the outputs of an international workshop with representatives from 14 countries held in Hong Kong in December 2011. The aim of the workshop and this paper was to identify ‘good practice’ in the development of WQGs to deliver to a range of environmental management goals. However, it is important to broaden this consideration to cover often overlooked facets of implementable WQGs, such as demonstrable field validation (i.e. does the WQG protect what it is supposed to?), fit for purpose of monitoring frameworks (often an on-going cost) and finally how are these monitoring data used to support management decisions in a manner that is transparent and understandable to stakeholders. It is clear that regulators and the regulated community have numerous pressures and constraints on their resources. Therefore, the final section of this paper addresses potential areas of collaboration and harmonisation. Such approaches could deliver a consistent foundation from which to assess potential chemical aquatic risks, including, for example, the adoption of bioavailability-based approaches for metals, whilst reducing administrative and technical burdens in jurisdictions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alberta Environmental Protection (1996) Protocol to Develop Alberta Water Quality Guidelines for Protection of Freshwater Aquatic Life. Available at http://environment.gov.ab.ca/info/library/7006.pdf. Accessed 1 Dec 2012
An YJ, Lee JK, Cho S (2008) Korean water quality standards for the protection of human health and aquatic life. Proceedings of the 2nd International Forum on Water Environment Partnership in Asia. Paper No. 10. Available at http://www.wepa-db.net/pdf/0712forum/paper10.pdf. Accessed Dec 2012
ANZECC and ARMCANZ (2000a) Australian and New Zealand guidelines for fresh and marine water quality. National Water Quality Management Strategy Paper No 4, Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council/Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand, Canberra
ANZECC and ARMCANZ (2000b) Australian Guidelines for water quality monitoring and reporting. National Water Quality Management Strategy Paper No 7, Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council / Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand, Canberra
CCME (2007) A protocol for the derivation of water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life 2007. In: Canadian Environmental Quality Guidelines 1999, Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME), Winnipeg, Canada
Chambers PA, Culp JM, Glozier NE, Cash KJ, Wrona FJ, Noton L (2006) Northern Rivers Ecosystem Initiative: nutrients and dissolved oxygen—issues and impacts. Env Mon Ass 113:117–141
Chapman PM, McDonald B, Kickham PE, McKinnon S (2006) Global geographic differences in marine metals toxicity. Mar Pollut Bull 52:1081–1084
Costa Silva G, Dubé MG (2013) Water quality assessment at a global scale: a comparison between world regions. Water Internat 38:78–94
Crane M, Kwok KWH, Wells C, Whitehouse P, Lui GCS (2007) Use of field data to support European Water Framework Directive quality standards for dissolved metals. Environ Sci Technol 41:5014–5021
Crane M, Matthiessen P, Maycock DS, Merrington G, Whitehouse P (2010) Derivation and use of environmental quality and human health standards for chemical substances in water and soil. CRC Press, Boca Raton, p 140
Crommentuijn T, Polder MD, Posthumus R, Van de Plassche E (1997) Maximum permissible concentrations and negligible concentrations for metals, taking backgrounds concentrations into account. Netherlands Institute of Public Health and the Environment, RIVM Report No. 601501001, Bilthoven, the Netherlands
EC (European Commission) (2011) Guidance Document No. 27. Technical Guidance for Deriving Environmental Quality Standards. Technical Report-2011–055. European Communities, Brussels. Available at http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/wfd/library?l=/framework_directive/guidance_documents/tgd-eqs_cis-wfd/_EN_1.0_&a=d. Accessed 1 Dec 2012
EC (European Commission) (2012) Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the council amending Directives 2000/60/EC and 2008/105/EC as regards priority substances in the field of water policy. COM(2011) 876 final. Brussels, Belgium
Environment Agency (2008) Determination of metal background reference concentrations: feasibility study. Environment Agency Science Report SC050063/SR, Bristol, UK
Environment Agency (2009) Using biotic ligand models to help implement environmental quality standards for metals under the Water Framework Directive. Science Report SC080021/SR7b, Environment Agency, Bristol, UK
FMWQ Working Group 4 (2010) Draft FMWQ Working Group 4 Workshop Minutes. Fresh and Marine Water Quality Working Group 4—toxicants and sediments. 14–16 April 2010. Lucas Heights, NSW, Australia
Forbes TL, Forbes VE (1993) A critique of the use of distribution-based extrapolation models in ecotoxicology. Function Ecol 7:249–254
Fox DR (2010) A Bayesian approach for determining the no effect concentration and hazardous concentration in ecotoxicology. Ecotoxicol Environ Safe 73:123–131
Gronewold AD, Borsuk ME (2010) Improving water quality assessments through a hierarchical Bayesian analysis of variability. Environ Sci Technol 44:7858–7864
Hamon RE, McLaughlin MJ, Gilkes RJ, Rate AW, Zarcinas B, Robertson A, Cozens G, Radford N, Bettenay L (2004) Geochemical indices allow estimation of heavy metal background concentrations in soils. Global Biogeochem Cycle 18:GB1014:1–6
Helsel DR (2005) More than obvious: better methods for interpreting nondetect data. Environ Sci Technol 39:419A–423A
Helsel DR, Cohn T (1988) Estimation of descriptive statistics for multiply censored water quality data. Water Resour Res 24:1997–2004
Hobbs DA, Warne MStJ, Markich SJ (2004) Utility of northern hemisphere metal toxicity data in Australasia. SETAC Globe 5(2):38–39
Hose GC (2005) Assessing the need for groundwater quality guidelines using the species sensitivity distribution approach. Human Ecol Risk Assess 11:951–966
International Organisation for Standardisation (2005a) ISO 19258:2005 Soil Quality: Guidance on Determination of Background Values. ICS code 13.080.99
International Organisation for Standardisation (2005b) Water quality—sampling—Part 20: Guidance on the use of sample data for decision making—compliance with limit values and classification. BSI British Standards Publications, London, p 34
Jager T (2012) Bad habits die hard: the NOEC’s persistence reflects poorly on ecotoxicology. Environ Toxicol Chem 31:228–229
Jin XW, Lei BL, Xu YP, Zha JM, Wang ZJ (2009) Methodologies for deriving water quality criteria to protect aquatic life (ALC) and proposal for development of ALC in China: a review. Asian J Ecotoxicol 4:609–616
Junghans MJ, von Arb S, Whitehouse P, Johnson I (2012) Variability in environmental quality standards—how much is there and what are the causes? Poster presented at SETAC World Congress 2012, May. Berlin.
Klein JP, Moeschberger ML (2003a) Survival analysis: techniques for censored and truncated data. Springer, New York, p 536
Klein JP, Moeschberger ML (2003b) Survival analysis: techniques for censored and truncated data. Springer, New York
Kwok KWH, Leung KMY, Chu VKH, Lam PKS, Morritt D, Maltby L, Brock TCM, Van den Brink PJ, Warne MStJ, Crane M (2007) Comparison of tropical and temperate freshwater species sensitivities to chemicals: implications for deriving safe extrapolation factors. Integr Environ Assess Manag 3(1):49–67
Landis WG, Chapman PM (2011) Well past time to stop using NOELs and LOELs. Integr Environ Assess Manag 7:vi–viii
Leung KMY, Bjørgesæter A, Gray JS, Li WK, Lui GCS, Wang Y, Lam PKS (2005) Deriving sediment quality guidelines using field-based species sensitivity distributions. Environ Sci Technol 39:5148–5156
Liney KE, Hagger JA, Tyler CR, Depledge MH, Galloway TS, Jobling S (2006) Health effects in fish of long-term exposure to effluents from wastewater treatment works. Environ Health Perspect 114:81–89
Linton TK, Pacheco MAW, McIntyre DO, Clement WH, Goodrich-Mahoney J (2007) Development of bioassessment based benchmarks for iron. Environ Toxicol Chem 26:1291–1298
London Workshop (2001) Report of the expert consultation workshop on statistical extrapolation techniques for environmental effects assessments. London, VK, European Chemicals Bureau, 17–18 January 2001
Meeker WO, Escobar LA (1998) Statistical methods for reliability of data. Wiley, New York
Ministry for the Environment (2003) Contaminated land management guidelines no. 2. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington
Moore DRJ, Caux PY (1997) Estimating low toxic effects. Environ Toxicol Chem 16:794–801
NEPC (National Environment Protection Council) (2011) National Environment Protection (Assessment of Site Contamination) Measure. Schedule B5b—guideline on methodology to derive ecological investigation levels in contaminated soils. NEPC, Adelaide, Australia. pp. 87. Available at: http://www.ephc.gov.au/sites/default/files/Schedule_B5b__Guideline_on_methodology_to_derive_EILs__SEP10.pdf. Accessed 20 Dec 2012
Newman MC (1995) Quantitative methods in aquatic ecotoxicology. CRC/Lewis, Boca Raton, pp 24–26
Newman MC (2008) What exactly are you inferring? A closer look at hypothesis testing. Environ Toxicol Chem 27:1013–1019
Peters A, Simpson P (2012) Accounting for both local aquatic community composition and bioavailability in setting local quality standards for metals. Platform Presentation, 6th SETAC World Congress/SETAC Europe 22nd Annual Meeting, Berlin, 20–24 May
Peters A, Crane M, Simpson P, Merrington G (2010) Assessment of the effects of nickel on benthic invertebrates in the field. Final Report Prepared for the Nickel Producers Environmental Research Association, Durham, NC, USA
Peters A, Crane M, Adams W (2011) Effects of iron on benthic macroinvertebrate communities in the field. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 86:591–595
Posthuma L, Suter GW, Traas TP (eds) (2001) Species sensitivity distributions for ecotoxicology. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton
SCHER (Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks) (2010) Opinion on the Chemicals and the Water Framework Directive: technical guidance for deriving environmental quality standards. Available at http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/environmental_risks/docs/scher_o_127.pdf. Accessed 1 Dec 2012
Singh A, Nocerino J (2002) Robust estimation of mean and variance using environmental datasets with below detection limit observations. Chemometrics Intellig Lab Syst 60:69–86
Stephan CE, Rogers JW (1985) Advantages of using regression analysis to calculate results of chronic toxicity tests. In: Bahner RC, Hansen DJ (eds) Aquatic toxicology and hazard assessment. STP 891. American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, pp 328–338
Stephan CE, Mount DI, Hanson DJ, Gentile JH, Chapman GA, Brungs WA (1985) Guidelines for deriving numeric National Water Quality Criteria for the protection of aquatic organisms and their uses. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Report PB85-227049, Washington, DC, USA
UK Technical Advisory Group on the Water Framework Directive (2008) Proposals for Environmental Quality Standards for Annex VIII Substances. Available at http://www.wfduk.org/sites/default/files/Media/Environmental%20standards/Specific%20pollutants%20proposals_Final_010608.pdf. Accessed 1 Dec 2012
US EPA (1994) Guidance for the data quality objectives process. EPA QA/G-4. EPA/600/R-96/055
US Environmental Protection Agency (1985) Guidelines for deriving numerical national water quality criteria for the protection of aquatic organisms and their uses. Available at http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/standards/criteria/aqlife/index.cfm#guide. Accessed 1 Dec 2012
Van Sprang P, Delbeke K, Regoli L, Waeterschoot H, Van Assche F, Adams W, Haesaerts D, Mattelet C, Bush A, Chung L, Verougstraete V (2008) Assessment of metal bioavailability and natural background levels—WFD monitoring from the perspective of metals industry. In: Qusvauviller P, Borchers U, Thompson C, Simonart T (eds) The Water Framework Directive: ecological and chemical status monitoring. Wiley, New York, pp 299–312
Warne MStJ (1998) Critical review of methods to derive water quality guidelines for toxicants and a proposal for a new framework. Supervising Scientist Report 135, Supervising Scientist, Canberra, ACT, Australia. ISBN 0 642 24338 7. 82 p
Warne MStJ, Van Dam R (2008) NOEC and LOEC data should no longer be generated or used. Australasian J Ecotoxicol 14(1):1–5
Wepener V, Chapman PM (2012) South African ecotoxicology—present status and future prognosis. African J Aquat Sci. doi:10.2989/16085914.2012.717051
Wheeler JR, Grist EPM, Leung KMY, Morritt D, Crane M (2002) Species sensitivity distribution: data and model choice. Mar Pollut Bull 45:192–202
Wu FC, Meng W, Zhao XL, Li HX, Zhang RQ, Cao YJ, Liao HQ (2010) China embarking on development of its own national water quality criteria system. Environ Sci Technol 44:7992–7993
Zhao FJ, McGrath SP, Merrington G (2007) Estimates of ambient background concentrations of trace metals in soils for risk assessment. Environ Pollut 148(1):221–229
Acknowledgments
This work and the EQSPAE-2011 Conference are largely supported by Environment and Conservation Fund of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (ECF Project 5/2011 to KMY Leung), and partially supported by the State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution (based at City University of Hong Kong), and School of Biological Sciences of the University of Hong Kong (HKU). The authors specially thank the following workshop participants, who had joined the discussion and shared their valuable views on the scientific derivation and application of WQGs, included Put Ang, Tae-Seob Choi, Kevin K. Y. Ho, Ryan H. L. Ip, Edward T. C. Lau, Hai-Yan Li, Myung-Sook Jung, Jing-Li Mu, Sunny Sun, Greta Tam, Thiyagarajan Vengatesen, Zhen Wang, Feng-Chang Wu, Elvis G. B. Xu, Jie Xu, Andy X. L. Yi and Jian-Gang Zhu. The authors are also thankful to the staff of HKU, in particular, Helen Leung and Janet Chan for their great assistance for making the conference and workshop a great success. Apart from the first and the last authors, the order of authorships follows an alphabetical order.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Additional information
Responsible editor: Hailong Wang
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Merrington, G., An, YJ., Grist, E.P.M. et al. Water quality guidelines for chemicals: learning lessons to deliver meaningful environmental metrics. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21, 6–16 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-1732-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-1732-8