Tianjin Key Laboratory of Remediation & Pollution Control for Urban Ecological Environment, Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria of Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China.
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Remediation & Pollution Control for Urban Ecological Environment, Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria of Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China.
Water Res. 2022 Oct 15;225:119139. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2022.119139. Epub 2022 Sep 20.
Contamination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediment has long been of great concern because of their toxic effects to benthic organisms. Sediment quality guidelines (SQGs) are the basis to evaluate the potential ecological risks of PAHs in sediments. Species sensitivity distribution (SSD) has been widely applied in deriving water quality criteria, but seldom employed in SQGs. In this study, SSD was used to derive the freshwater SQGs for four representative PAHs (naphthalene, phenanthrene, pyrene and benzo[a]pyrene) based on the sediment toxicity results. A linear relationship between the SQGs and octanol-water partition coefficient (log K) was developed, and applied to predict the SQGs of other twelve PAHs. The obtained SQGs were in the range of 0.46 - 1.79 mg/kg with a geometric mean of 0.97 mg/kg, which was proposed as the SQGs for total PAHs. Based on these SQGs, the risk quotients of PAHs in the sediments collected from Haihe River of China were calculated, and the toxic effects were also tested using three representative benthic organisms. As the risk quotients of the PAHs and heavy metals in the sediments were summed up, good correlations were found (p = 0.074 and 0.018) between them and the observed toxicities of the sediments. The SQGs developed for PAHs was promising in ecological risk assessment for contaminated freshwater sediments.
多环芳烃（PAHs）在沉积物中的污染一直受到极大关注，因为它们对底栖生物具有毒性效应。沉积物质量基准（SQGs）是评估沉积物中 PAHs 潜在生态风险的基础。物种敏感性分布（SSD）已广泛应用于推导水质标准，但很少用于 SQGs。本研究基于沉积物毒性结果，利用 SSD 推导了四种代表性 PAHs（萘、菲、芘和苯并[a]芘）的淡水 SQGs。建立了 SQGs 与辛醇-水分配系数（log K）之间的线性关系，并将其应用于预测其他十二种 PAHs 的 SQGs。获得的 SQGs 范围为 0.46-1.79 mg/kg，几何平均值为 0.97 mg/kg，建议将其作为总 PAHs 的 SQGs。基于这些 SQGs，计算了来自中国海河的沉积物中 PAHs 的风险商数，并使用三种代表性底栖生物测试了它们的毒性效应。当将沉积物中 PAHs 和重金属的风险商数加总时，发现它们与沉积物的观察毒性之间存在良好的相关性（p=0.074 和 0.018）。为 PAHs 制定的 SQGs 在受污染的淡水沉积物生态风险评估中具有广阔的应用前景。
