Substance-related environmental monitoring strategies regarding soil, groundwater and surface water — an overview

Substance-related monitoring is an essential tool within environmental risk assessment processes. The soundness of policy decisions including risk management measures is often directly related to the reliability of the environmental monitoring programs. In addition, monitoring programs are required for identifying new and less-investigated pollutants of concern in different environmental media. Scientifically sound and feasible monitoring concepts strongly depend on the aim of the study. The proper definition of questions to be answered is thus of pivotal importance. Decisions on sample handling, storage and the analysis of the samples are important steps for the elaboration of problem-oriented monitoring strategies. The same applies to the selection of the sampling sites as being representative for scenarios to be investigated. These steps may become critical to handle for larger international monitoring programs and thus trigger the quality of their results. This study based on the work of an IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) task group addresses different kinds and approaches of substance-related monitoring of different compartments of soil, groundwater and surface water, and discusses their advantages and limitations. Further important aspects are the monitoring across policies and the monitoring data management using information systems.     

Arzneimittelwirkstoffe in der Umwelt

During the last decade, the impact of chemical pollution and environmental chemistry has focused almost exclusively on the conventional ‘priority’ pollutants which are regulated in different environmental laws. This spectrum of chemicals, however, is only one piece in the larger puzzle of ‘holistic’ risk assessment. The pharmacentical drugs are a diverse group of bioactive chemicals receiving comparatively little attention as potential environmental pollutants. The aim of the literature review is to describe the most important exposition scenarios for human and veterinary pharmacenticals in different environmental compartments (soil, surface, waste water, ground water, table water, etc.)     

Energy demand of larval and juvenile Cape horse mackerels, Trachurus capensis, and indications of hypoxia tolerance as benefit in a changing environment

Trachurus capensis is an important fisheries resource in the degraded Namibian upwelling ecosystem. Food supply and shoaling of hypoxic zones are hypothesised to influence the species’ recruitment success. This paper is the first to quantify energy requirements and hypoxia tolerance of larval and juvenile stages of a Trachurus species. We measured normoxic respiration rates of T. capensis with a size range from 0.001 to 20.8 g wet mass (WM) collected off Cape Town (33.9°S, 18.5°E, 12/2009) and in the northern Benguela (17–24°S, 11–15°E, 02/2011). Routine metabolic rate (RMR) and standard routine rate (SRR) (mg O₂ h^?1) followed the allometric functions RMR = 0.418 WM^0.774 and SRR = 0.275 WM^0.855, respectively. Larvae and juveniles had comparatively high metabolic rates, and the energy demand of juveniles at the upper end of the size range appeared too high to be fuelled by a copepod diet alone. T. capensis’ early life stages showed a high tolerance to hypoxic conditions. RMR in larvae did not change until 30 % O₂sat at 18 °C. In juveniles, critical oxygen saturation levels were low (P_C for SRR = 11.2 ± 1.7 % O₂sat and P_C for RMR = 13.2 ± 1.6 % O₂sat at 20 °C) and oxy-regulation effective (regulation index = 0.78 ± 0.09). A high hypoxia tolerance may facilitate the retention of larvae in near-shore waters providing favourable feeding conditions and allowing juveniles to exploit food resources in the oxygen minimum zone. These mechanisms seem to well adapt T. capensis to a habitat affected by spreading hypoxic zones and probably enhance its recruitment success.     

Thermische Schlammkonditionierung nach dem Porteous-Verfahren

In Nuremberg (Germany), each year about 25,000 tons (dry matter) of sewage sludge are obtained as by-product of waste water treatment. The digested sludge consists of 96% water. Until 1992 it was thermally stabilized using the Porteous procedure: the sludge was heated in an autoclave up to a temperature of 180–200 °C at a pressure of 28 bar. After pressure reduction and moving to a thickener, a substantial part of the liquid could be removed. After running through a chamber filter, the sludge contained only about 50% dry matter. This treatment does not only remove water; organic matter is also degraded or evaporated. Between November 1991 and May 1992, the sludge was analyzed four times before and after the drying process and examined for heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Hg, Zn), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and PCDD/F. The concentration of heavy metals and PCB (related to dry matter) increased by a faktor of 1.3 after the drying process. This effect may be explained by the decrease of organic matter during drying. In the case of PCDD/F, the ITQ increased by a factor of 3.2, for some congeners even by a factor of 8. The only explanation can be that during thermal conditioning PCDD/F is formed by precursors as chlorophenols. This formation is probably catalyzed by metals as copper or nickel and sped up by the higher temperatures.     

Aufnahme von 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluol in Pflanzen

Soil contaminations with the explosive 2,4,6-TNT are a major problem at many sites of former ammuniton plants in Germany. But only little is known about its environmental or metabolic fate in soil or plants. A field study was conducted on a former ammunition plant in Stadtallendorf/Hessen. Three areas with different TNT concentrations were planted with 8 different crops. After harvest plants were analyzed for TNT, ADNTs and DNTs. Soil contamination decreased in the rhizosphere compared to unplanted areas and there was a transfer of TNT from soil to the plants. Accumulation in plants was dependent on soil contamination and also specific for different plant parts or plant species. The contamination spectrum of TNT and derivatives was different in soil or plant tissue, respectively. After acid hydrolysis of bean roots, 2,6-DNT and 2,4-DNT could be identified in the extract.