PMID- 18522862
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20081001
LR  - 20080616
IS  - 0025-326X (Print)
IS  - 0025-326X (Linking)
VI  - 57
IP  - 6-12
DP  - 2008
TI  - Measuring and monitoring persistent organic pollutants in the context of risk 
      assessment.
PG  - 236-44
LID - 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2008.03.012 [doi]
AB  - Due to growing concerns regarding persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the 
      environment, extensive studies and monitoring programs have been carried out in 
      the last two decades to determine their concentrations in water, sediment, and 
      more recently, in biota. An extensive review and analysis of the existing 
      literature shows that whilst the vast majority of these efforts either attempt to 
      compare (a) spatial changes (to identify "hot spots"), or (b) temporal changes to 
      detect deterioration/improvement occurring in the environment, most studies could 
      not provide sufficient statistical power to estimate concentrations of POPs in 
      the environment and detect spatial and temporal changes. Despite various national 
      POPs standards having been established, there has been a surprising paucity of 
      emphasis in establishing accurate threshold concentrations that indicate 
      potential significant threats to ecosystems and public health. Although most 
      monitoring programs attempt to check compliance through reference to certain 
      "environmental quality objectives", it should be pointed out that many of these 
      established standards are typically associated with a large degree of uncertainty 
      and rely on a large number of assumptions, some of which may be arbitrary. 
      Non-compliance should trigger concern, so that the problem can be tracked down 
      and rectified, but non-compliance must not be interpreted in a simplistic and 
      mechanical way. Contaminants occurring in the physical environment may not 
      necessarily be biologically available, and even when they are bioavailable, they 
      may not necessarily elicit adverse biological effects at the individual or 
      population levels. As such, we here argue that routine monitoring and reporting 
      of abiotic and biotic POPs concentrations could be of limited use, unless such 
      data can be related directly to the assessment of public health and ecological 
      risks. Risk can be inferred from the ratio of predicted environmental 
      concentration (PEC) and the predicted no effect concentration (PNEC). Currently, 
      the paucity of data does not allow accurate estimation of PNEC, and future 
      endeavors should therefore, be devoted to determine the threshold concentrations 
      of POPs that can cause undesirable biological effects on sensitive receivers and 
      important biological components in the receiving environment (e.g. keystone 
      species, populations with high energy flow values, etc.), to enable derivation of 
      PNECs based on solid scientific evidence and reduce uncertainty. Using the 
      threshold body burden of POPs required to elicit damages of lysosomal integrity 
      in the green mussel (Perna virvidis) as an example, we illustrate how measurement 
      of POPs in body tissue could be used in predicting environmental risk in a 
      meaningful way.
FAU - Wu, Rudolf S S
AU  - Wu RS
AD  - Department of Biology and Chemistry, Research Centre for Coastal Pollution and 
      Conservation, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong 
      Kong. bh101dal@cityu.edu.hk
FAU - Chan, Alice K Y
AU  - Chan AK
FAU - Richardson, Bruce J
AU  - Richardson BJ
FAU - Au, Doris W T
AU  - Au DW
FAU - Fang, James K H
AU  - Fang JK
FAU - Lam, Paul K S
AU  - Lam PK
FAU - Giesy, John P
AU  - Giesy JP
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20080605
PL  - England
TA  - Mar Pollut Bull
JT  - Marine pollution bulletin
JID - 0260231
RN  - 0 (Water Pollutants, Chemical)
SB  - IM
MH  - Animals
MH  - Bivalvia/chemistry
MH  - Environmental Monitoring/methods/*standards
MH  - Fishes
MH  - Geologic Sediments/chemistry
MH  - Risk Assessment
MH  - Seawater/chemistry
MH  - Water Pollutants, Chemical/*analysis
EDAT- 2008/06/05 09:00
MHDA- 2008/10/02 09:00
CRDT- 2008/06/05 09:00
PHST- 2007/08/03 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2008/03/04 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2008/03/09 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2008/06/05 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2008/10/02 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2008/06/05 09:00 [entrez]
AID - S0025-326X(08)00165-3 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2008.03.012 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Mar Pollut Bull. 2008;57(6-12):236-44. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2008.03.012. Epub 
      2008 Jun 5.