School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia.
The Swire Institute of Marine Science and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2017 Nov;24(32):25276-25290. doi: 10.1007/s11356-017-0168-y. Epub 2017 Sep 19.
Antimony (Sb) is a pollutant in many jurisdictions, yet its threat to aquatic biota is unclear. Water quality guidelines (WQGs) for Sb are not well established and large uncertainty factors are commonly applied in derivation. We constructed freshwater species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) for Sb(III) using available acute toxicity data sourced from temperate and tropical regional studies. A tiered ecological risk assessment (ERA) approach using risk quotients (RQs) was applied for characterisation of risks presented by Sb(III) concentrations measured in the freshwater environment. Multiple parametric models were fitted for each SSD, with the optimal model used to derive the 5% hazardous concentration (HC5), defined as protective of 95% of species, and the corresponding predicted no effect concentration (PNEC). The HC5 values for whole and temperate SSDs were estimated at 781 and 976 μg L Sb(III), respectively, while the PNECs for both datasets were 156 and 195 μg L Sb(III), respectively. Due to limited tropical data, a temperate-to-tropic extrapolation factor of 10 was used to estimate an interim PNEC for tropical regions of 20 μg L Sb(III). Based on published freshwater Sb(III) concentration values across a range of locations, potential ecological risks posed by Sb(III) in some freshwater systems studied would be classified as medium to high risk, but the majority of locations sampled would fall into the low ecological risk category. Our results facilitate the understanding of toxic effects of Sb(III) to freshwater species but also demonstrate that data for Sb ERA are extremely limited.
锑（Sb）是许多司法管辖区的污染物，但它对水生生物群的威胁尚不清楚。水质标准（WQGs）中锑的规定还不完善，在推导过程中通常会应用较大的不确定因素。我们使用来自温带和热带区域研究的可用急性毒性数据，为 Sb(III) 构建了淡水物种敏感性分布（SSD）。应用风险商数（RQ）的分层生态风险评估（ERA）方法，对 Sb(III) 浓度在淡水环境中测量所带来的风险进行特征描述。对每个 SSD 拟合了多个参数模型，使用最优模型推导 5%危害浓度（HC5），定义为保护 95%的物种，以及相应的预测无效应浓度（PNEC）。整个和温带 SSD 的 HC5 值分别估计为 781 和 976μg L Sb(III)，而这两个数据集的 PNEC 值分别为 156 和 195μg L Sb(III)。由于热带数据有限，使用温带到热带的外推因子 10 来估计热带地区的临时 PNEC 值为 20μg L Sb(III)。根据在各种地点发表的淡水 Sb(III)浓度值，Sb(III)在一些研究的淡水系统中造成的潜在生态风险将被归类为中到高风险，但大多数采样地点将属于低生态风险类别。我们的结果有助于了解 Sb(III)对淡水物种的毒性影响，但也表明 Sb ERA 的数据极为有限。
