Abstract
Organophosphate esters (OPEs), as re-emerging contaminants considered to be a potential health concern, are ubiquitous in the environment and have been widely investigated. However, little is known on the safe OPE concentrations in the water quality criteria for the protection of the aquatic environment, which is an indispensable part of environmental management. In the present study, aquatic acute and chronic predicted no-effect concentrations (PNECs) of six frequently detected OPEs were derived from the hazardous concentrations for 5% of species (HC5s), respectively. The acute PNECs for the selected OPEs ranged from 17.70 to 3562 μg/L, while the chronic PNECs ranged from 4.6 × 10−4 to 61.85 μg/L. Among these OPEs, tricresyl phosphate (TCrP) exhibited the lowest acute PNEC, while tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCPP) presented chronic PNEC, which indicated that it has a higher toxicity effect on the aquatic environment. Furthermore, the aquatic ecological risks of individual OPEs (except for TDCPP) were deemed to be relatively low in Chinese surface water; however, the aquatic ecological risks of TDCPP and ΣOPEs indicated that they have potential adverse effects and should be considered as a potential health concern. The probability of 5% of aquatic organisms being affected by ΣOPEs was in the range of 0.21 to 17.39% based on the joint probability curve method.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahlers J, Riedhammer C, Vogliano M, Ebert RU, Kuhne R, Schuurmann G (2006) Acute to chronic ratios in aquatic toxicity-variation across trophic levels and relationship with chemical structure. Environ Toxicol Chem 25:2937–2945
Altenburger R, Backhaus T, Boedeker W, Faust M, Scholze M, Grimme LH (2010) Predictability of the toxicity of multiple chemical mixtures to Vibrio fischeri: mixtures composed of similarly acting chemicals. Environ Toxicol Chem 19:2341–2347
CCME (2007) A protocol for the derivation of water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life. Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, Manitoba
Chen Y, Yu S, Tang S, Li Y, Liu H, Zhang X, Su G, Li B, Yu H, Giesy JP (2016) Site-specific water quality criteria for aquatic ecosystems: a case study of pentachlorophenol for Tai Lake, China. Sci Total Environ 541:65–73
Cristale J, Garcia Vazquez A, Barata C, Lacorte S (2013) Priority and emerging flame retardants in rivers: occurrence in water and sediment, Daphnia magna toxicity and risk assessment. Environ Int 59:232–243
Ding J, Shen X, Liu W, Covaci A, Yang F (2015) Occurrence and risk assessment of organophosphate esters in drinking water from eastern China. Sci Total Environ 538:959–965
Duran I, Beiras R (2013) Ecotoxicologically based marine acute water quality criteria for metals intended for protection of coastal areas. Sci Total Environ 463:446–453
EC (European Commission) (2011) Technical guidance for deriving environmental quality standards, guidance document no. 27, common implementation strategy for the water framework directive (2000/60/EC), Technical Report-2011-055
Hose GC, Van Den Brink PJ (2004) Confirming the species-sensitivity distribution concept for endosulfan using laboratory, mesocosm, and field data. Arch Environ Contamin Toxicol 47:511–520
Huang QS, Bu QW, Zhong WJ, Shi KC, Cao ZG, Yu G (2018) Derivation of aquatic predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC) for ibuprofen and sulfamethoxazole based on various toxicity endpoints and the associated risks. Chemosphere 193:223–229
Li J, Yu N, Zhang B, Jin L, Li M, Hu M, Zhang X, Wei S, Yu H (2014) Occurrence of organophosphate flame retardants in drinking water from China. Water Res 54:53–61
Li J, Tang J, Mi W, Tian C, Emeis KC, Ebinghaus R et al (2017) Spatial distribution and seasonal variation of organophosphate esters in air above the Bohai and yellow seas. China Environ Sci Technol 52:89–97
Li W, Shi Y, Gao L, Wu C, Liu J, Cai Y (2018) Occurrence, distribution and risk of organophosphate esters in urban road dust in Beijing, China. Environ Pollut 241:566–575
Liang K, Liu J (2016) Understanding the distribution, degradation and fate of organophosphate esters in an advanced municipal sewage treatment plant based on mass flow and mass balance analysis. Sci Total Environ 544:262–270
Liang K, Shi F, Liu J (2018) Occurrence and distribution of oligomeric organophosphorus flame retardants in different treatment stages of a sewage treatment plant. Environ Pollut 232:229–235
Liu YH, Song NH, Guo RX, Xu HZ, Zhang Q, Han ZH et al (2018) Occurrence and partitioning behavior of organophosphate esters in surface water and sediment of a shallow Chinese freshwater Lake (Taihu Lake): implication for eco-toxicity risk. Chemosphere 202:255–263
Maltby L, Blake N, Brock TCM, Brink PJVD (2005) Insecticide species sensitivity distributions: importance of test species selection and relevance to aquatic ecosystems. Environ Toxicol Chem 24:379–388
Niu ZG, Du L, li JF, Zhang Y, Lv ZW (2018) Ecological risk assessment of microcystin-LR in the upstream section of the Haihe River based on a species sensitivity distribution model. Chemosphere 193:403–411
Peng Y, Fang W, Krauss M, Brack W, Wang Z, Li F, Zhang X (2018) Screening hundreds of emerging organic pollutants (EOPs) in surface water from the Yangtze River Delta (YRD): occurrence, distribution, ecological risk. Environ Pollut 241:484–493
Ren X, Cao L, Yang Y, Wan B, Wang S, Guo L (2016) In vitro assessment of thyroid hormone receptor activity of four organophosphate esters. J Environ Sci 45:185–190
Salamova A, Hermanson MH, Hites RA (2014) Organophosphate and halogenated flame retardants in atmospheric particles from a European Arctic site. Environ Sci Technol 48:6133–6140
Shi Y, Gao L, Li W, Wang Y, Liu J, Cai Y (2016) Occurrence, distribution and seasonal variation of organophosphate flame retardants and plasticizers in urban surface water in Beijing, China. Environ Pollut 209:1–10
Solomon K, Giesy J, Jones P, Katan J, Aharonson N, Cohen E et al (2000) Probabilistic risk assessment of agrochemicals in the environment. Crop Prot 19:649–655
Traas, T.P., Bruijn, J.H.M.D. (2001) Guidance document on deriving environmental risk limits. RIVM report 601501012/2001
van der Veen I, de Boer J (2012) Phosphorus flame retardants: properties, production, environmental occurrence, toxicity and analysis. Chemosphere 88:1119–1153
Verbruggen, E.M.J., Rila, J.P., Traas, T.P., Posthuma-Doodeman, C.J.A.M., Posthumus, R. (2005) Environmental risk limits for several phosphate esters, with possible application as flame retardant. RIVM report 601501024/2005
Wang XW, Liu JF, Yin YG (2011) Development of an ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for high throughput determination of organophosphorus flame retardants in environmental water. J Chromatogr A 1218:6705–6711
Wang S, Wan B, Zhang L, Yang Y, Guo L-H (2014) In vitro inhibition of lysine decarboxylase activity by organophosphate esters. Biochem Pharmacol 92:506–516
Wang RM, Tang JH, Xie ZY, Mi WY, Chen YJ, Wolschke H et al (2015) Occurrence and spatial distribution of organophosphate ester flame retardants and plasticizers in 40 rivers draining into the Bohai Sea, North China. Environ Pollut 198:172–178
Wang G, Shi H, Du Z, Chen H, Peng J, Gao S (2017) Bioaccumulation mechanism of organophosphate esters in adult zebrafish (Danio rerio). Environ Pollut 229:177–187
Wei GL, Li DQ, Zhuo MN, Liao YS, Xie ZY, Guo TL, Li JJ, Zhang SY, Liang ZQ (2015) Organophosphorus flame retardants and plasticizers: sources, occurrence, toxicity and human exposure. Environ Pollut 196:29–46
Wheeler JR, Grist EPM, Leung KMY, Morritt D, Crane M (2002) Species sensitivity distributions: data and model choice. Mar Pollut Bull 45:192–202
Xing LQ, Liu HL, Giesy JP, Yu HX (2012a) pH-dependent aquatic criteria for 2,4-dichlorophenol, 2,4,6-trichlorophenol and pentachlorophenol. Sci Total Environ 441:125–131
Xing LQ, Liu HL, Giesy JP, Zhang XW, Yu HX (2012b) Probabilistic ecological risk assessment for three chlorophenols in surface waters of China. J Environ Sci 24:329–334
Xing LQ, Liu HL, Zhang XW, Hecker M, Giesy JP, Yu HX (2014) A comparison of statistical methods for deriving freshwater quality criteria for the protection of aquatic organisms. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21:159–167
Xing L, Zhang Q, Sun X, Zhu H, Zhang S, Xu H (2018) Occurrence, distribution and risk assessment of organophosphate esters in surface water and sediment from a shallow freshwater Lake, China. Sci Total Environ 636:632–640
Xu FL, Kong XZ, Qin N, He W, Liu WX (2014) Chapter 4-eco-risk assessments for toxic contaminants based on species sensitivity distribution models in Lake Chaohu, China. Develop. Environ. Model, vol 26, pp 75–111
Zeng X, Wu Y, Liu Z, Gao S, Yu Z (2018) Occurrence and distribution of organophosphate ester flame retardants in indoor dust and their potential health exposure risk. Environ Toxicol Chem 37:345–352
Zha DP, Li Y, Yang CM, Yao C (2018) Assessment of organophosphate flame retardants in surface water and sediment from a freshwater environment (Yangtze River, China). Environ Monit Assess 190:222
Zhao JS, Chen BY (2016) Species sensitivity distribution for chlorpyrifos to aquatic organisms: model choice and sample size. Ecotox Environ Safe 125:161–169
Zhao WX, Wang B, Wang YJ, Deng SB, Huang J, Yu G (2017) Deriving acute and chronic predicted no effect concentrations of pharmaceuticals and personal care products based on species sensitivity distributions. Ecotox Environ Safe 144:537–542
Zhong M, Wu H, Mi W, Li F, Ji C, Ebinghaus R, Tang J, Xie Z (2018) Occurrences and distribution characteristics of organophosphate ester flame retardants and plasticizers in the sediments of the Bohai and Yellow Seas, China. Sci Total Environ 615:1305–1311
Funding
This work was funded by the National Major Project of Science & Technology Ministry of China (No. 2017ZX07602-004).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing financial interest.
Additional information
Responsible editor: Kenneth Mei Yee Leung
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(DOCX 1448 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Xing, L., Wang, L., Xu, B. et al. Derivation of the predicted no-effect concentration for organophosphate esters and the associated ecological risk in surface water in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 19795–19803 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-05236-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-05236-5