Wu Rudolf S S, Chan Alice K Y, Richardson Bruce J, Au Doris W T, Fang James K H, Lam Paul K S, Giesy John P
Department of Biology and Chemistry, Research Centre for Coastal Pollution and Conservation, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2008;57(6-12):236-44. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2008.03.012. Epub 2008 Jun 5.
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.
由于对环境中持久性有机污染物（POPs）的担忧日益增加，在过去二十年中开展了广泛的研究和监测计划，以确定它们在水、沉积物以及最近在生物群中的浓度。对现有文献进行的广泛综述和分析表明，虽然这些努力绝大多数要么试图比较（a）空间变化（以识别“热点”），要么比较（b）时间变化以检测环境中发生的恶化/改善情况，但大多数研究无法提供足够的统计能力来估计环境中POPs的浓度并检测空间和时间变化。尽管已经制定了各种国家POPs标准，但在确定表明对生态系统和公众健康有潜在重大威胁的准确阈值浓度方面，令人惊讶地缺乏重视。虽然大多数监测计划试图通过参考某些“环境质量目标”来检查合规情况，但应该指出的是，许多这些既定标准通常伴随着很大程度的不确定性，并且依赖于大量假设，其中一些可能是随意的。不合规情况应引发关注，以便能够追踪并纠正问题，但绝不能以简单机械的方式来解释不合规情况。存在于物理环境中的污染物不一定具有生物可利用性，即使它们具有生物可利用性，也不一定会在个体或种群水平上引发不利的生物效应。因此，我们在此认为，除非此类数据能够直接与公共卫生和生态风险评估相关联，否则对非生物和生物POPs浓度进行常规监测和报告可能用处有限。风险可以从预测环境浓度（PEC）与预测无效应浓度（PNEC）的比率中推断出来。目前，数据的匮乏不允许准确估计PNEC，因此未来的努力应致力于确定能够对敏感受体和受纳环境中的重要生物成分（例如关键物种、具有高能量流值的种群等）产生不良生物效应的POPs阈值浓度，以便能够基于可靠的科学证据推导出PNEC并减少不确定性。以引发绿贻贝（Perna virvidis）溶酶体完整性损伤所需的POPs阈值体内负荷为例，我们说明了如何以有意义的方式利用身体组织中POPs的测量来预测环境风险。
