Water@leeds, School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JZ, UK.
The Royal Horticultural Society, Harlow Carr, Crag Lane, Beckwithshaw, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG3 1QB, UK.
Water Res. 2018 Jan 1;128:49-60. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2017.10.031. Epub 2017 Oct 15.
Point and diffuse sources associated with historical metal ore mining are major causes of metal pollution. The understanding of metal behaviour and fate has been improved by the integration of water chemistry, metal availability and toxicity. Efforts have been devoted to the development of efficient methods of assessing and managing the risk posed by metals to aquatic life and meeting national water quality standards. This study focuses on the evaluation of current water quality and ecotoxicology techniques for the metal assessment of an upland limestone catchment located within a historical metal (lead ore) mining area in northern England. Within this catchment, metal toxicity occurs at circumneutral pH (6.2-7.5). Environmental Quality Standards (EQSs) based on a simple single concentration approach like hardness based EQS (EQS-H) are more overprotective, and from sixteen sites monitored in this study more than twelve sites (>75%) failed the EQSs for Zn and Pb. By increasing the complexity of assessment tools (e.g. bioavailability-based (EQS-B) and WHAM-F), less conservative limits were provided, decreasing the number of sites with predicted ecological risk to seven (44%). Thus, this research supports the use of bioavailability-based approaches and their applicability for future metal risk assessments.
与历史金属矿石开采有关的点状和弥散状污染源是金属污染的主要成因。通过将水化学、金属的有效性和毒性进行整合，人们对金属的行为和归宿有了更深入的了解。人们一直在努力开发有效的方法，以评估和管理金属对水生生物的风险，并达到国家水质标准。本研究侧重于评估当前水质和生态毒理学技术，以评估位于英格兰北部历史金属（铅矿）矿区内的高地石灰岩流域的金属状况。在这个流域，金属的毒性出现在中性 pH 值（6.2-7.5）下。基于硬度等简单单一浓度方法的环境质量标准（EQS），如硬度 EQS（EQS-H），过于保护，在本研究监测的 16 个地点中，超过 12 个地点（>75%）未能达到 Zn 和 Pb 的 EQS。通过增加评估工具的复杂性（例如基于生物有效性的 EQS-B 和 WHAM-F），提供了不太保守的限制，将具有预测生态风险的地点数量减少到 7 个（44%）。因此，这项研究支持使用基于生物有效性的方法及其在未来金属风险评估中的适用性。
