Articles

Climate effects on the onset of flowering in the United Kingdom

A warmer climate has consequences for the timing of phenological events, as temperature is a key factor controlling plant development and flowering. In this study, we analyse the effects of the long-term clima...

Authors: Nigel Fox and Anna Maria Jönsson

Hypo- or hyperactivity of zebrafish embryos provoked by neuroactive substances: a review on how experimental parameters impact the predictability of behavior changes

Tests with zebrafish embryos have gained wide acceptance as an alternative test model for drug development and toxicity testing. In particular, the behavioral response of the zebrafish embryo is currently seen...

Authors: Afolarin Ogungbemi, David Leuthold, Stefan Scholz and Eberhard Küster

Food-related exposure to systemic pesticides and pesticides from transgenic plants: evaluation of aquatic test strategies

The aquatic Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) for pesticides relies on standardized experimental protocols focusing on exposure via the water phase or the sediment. Systemic pesticides (e.g., neonicotinoids)...

Authors: Rebecca Bundschuh, Mirco Bundschuh, Mathias Otto and Ralf Schulz

Evaluation of microbial shifts caused by a silver nanomaterial: comparison of four test systems

Before chemicals, pesticides and biocides are registered and approved, their effects on soil microorganisms must be tested, specifically their impact on nitrogen transformation. Following a request from the Eu...

Authors: Kerstin Hund-Rinke, Anna Hümmler, Ruben Schlinkert, Franziska Wege and Gabriele Broll

Freshwater ecosystems profit from activated carbon-based wastewater treatment across various levels of biological organisation in a short timeframe

Wastewater treatment plants are known as major sources for the release of micropollutants and bacteria into surface waters. To reduce this contaminant and microbial input, new technologies for effluent treatme...

Authors: Rita Triebskorn, Ludek Blaha, Claudia Gallert, Sabrina Giebner, Harald Hetzenauer, Heinz-R. Köhler, Bertram Kuch, Frauke Lüddeke, Jörg Oehlmann, Katharina Peschke, Frank Sacher, Marco Scheurer, Simon Schwarz, Paul Thellmann, Karl Wurm and Sabrina Wilhelm

Linking biological toxicity and the spectral characteristics of contamination in seriously polluted urban rivers

Urban river pollution risks to environments and human health are emerging as a serious concern worldwide. With the aim to achieve the health of urban river ecosystem, numerous monitoring programs have been imp...

Authors: Zhongli Chen, Zihan Zhu, Jiyu Song, Ruiyan Liao, Yufan Wang, Xi Luo, Dongya Nie, Yumeng Lei, Ying Shao and Wei Yang

Multiple physiological response analyses aid the understanding of sensitivity variation between Microcystis aeruginosa and Chlorella sp. under paraquat exposures

Sensitivity differences to chemical pollutants in different phytoplankton species may potentially shape the community structure of phytoplankton. However, detailed information supporting the understanding of s...

Authors: Fang Bai, Yunlu Jia, Cuiping Yang, Tianli Li, Zhongxing Wu, Jin Liu and Lirong Song

A novel family of PLAC8 motif-containing/PCR genes mediates Cd tolerance and Cd accumulation in rice

Cd is one of the highly toxic heavy metals to most organisms, including humans and plants, and Cd-contaminated rice from China has become a global food safety issue. The early prediction of OsPCR (the plant ca...

Authors: Feijuan Wang, Haifeng Tan, Jiahui Han, Yiting Zhang, Xigeduleng He, Yanfei Ding, ZhiXiang Chen and Cheng Zhu

Occurrence and distribution of antibiotic resistance genes in the water and sediments of Qingcaosha Reservoir, Shanghai, China

Qingcaosha Reservoir is China’s largest river impoundment and an important drinking water resource for Shanghai city. Although antibiotics contamination in the reservoir has been reported, little is known abou...

Authors: Zhifeng Huang, Wanting Zhao, Ting Xu, Binghui Zheng and Daqiang Yin

Correlating elements content in mosses collected in 2015 across Germany with spatially associated characteristics of sampling sites and their surroundings

The aim of the study was a statistical evaluation of the statistical relevance of potentially explanatory variables (atmospheric deposition, meteorology, geology, soil, topography, sampling, vegetation structu...

Authors: Stefan Nickel and Winfried Schröder

Assessment of mercury pollution sources in beach sand and coastal soil by speciation analysis

An essential requisite for controlling and monitoring mercury in the environment is to identify its species in different types of soils and sediments, as this will help not only to establish its mobility in th...

Authors: José Luis R. Gallego, Maria Antonia López-Antón, Deva Martínez de la Rosa, Eduardo Rodríguez-Valdés, Nerea García-González, Elena Rodríguez and Maria Rosa Martínez-Tarazona

Moss species-specific accumulation of atmospheric deposition?

This article presents statistical analyses of elements concentrations in mosses collected in two monitoring programmes: 1. The German moss monitoring as part of the European Moss Survey conducted in 1990, 1995...

Authors: Winfried Schröder and Stefan Nickel

Correction to: Assessing the leaching behavior of different gunshot materials in natural spring waters

The authors note a correction to the original article [1]. Table 3 legend is incorrectly processed. This article presents the corrected version of Table 3.

Authors: Julian Fäth and Axel Göttlein

Towards a reliable prediction of the aquatic toxicity of dyes

The Max Weaver Dye Library (MWDL) from North Carolina State University is a repository of around 98,000 synthetic dyes. Historically, the uses for these dyes included the coloration of textiles, paper, packagi...

Authors: Gisela de A. Umbuzeiro, Anjaina F. Albuquerque, Francine I. Vacchi, Malgorzata Szymczyk, Xinyi Sui, Reza Aalizadeh, Peter C. von der Ohe, Nikolaos S. Thomaidis, Nelson R. Vinueza and Harold S. Freeman

Groundwater and connected ecosystems: an overview of groundwater body status assessment in Croatia

Croatia, as a Member State of the European Union, has to shape its water policy in accordance with the European Union Water Framework Directive. One of the tasks is to determine whether groundwater are suscept...

Authors: Željka Brkić, Mladen Kuhta, Ozren Larva and Sanja Gottstein

Solutions for present and future emerging pollutants in land and water resources management. Policy briefs summarizing scientific project results for decision makers

Authors: Werner Brack

Exploring the ‘solution space’ is key: SOLUTIONS recommends an early-stage assessment of options to protect and restore water quality against chemical pollution

Present evaluations of chemical pollution in European surface and groundwater bodies focus on problem description and chemical classification of water quality. Surprisingly, relatively low attention has been p...

Authors: Leo Posthuma, Thomas Backhaus, Juliane Hollender, Dirk Bunke, Werner Brack, Christin Müller, Jos van Gils, Henner Hollert, John Munthe and Annemarie van Wezel

The European Collaborative Project SOLUTIONS developed models to provide diagnostic and prognostic capacity and fill data gaps for chemicals of emerging concern

The European Union Water Framework Directives aims at achieving good ecological status in member states’ water bodies. Insufficient ecological status could be the result of different interacting stressors, amo...

Authors: Jos van Gils, Leo Posthuma, Ian T. Cousins, Claudia Lindim, Dick de Zwart, Dirk Bunke, Stela Kutsarova, Christin Müller, John Munthe, Jaroslav Slobodnik and Werner Brack

Mixtures of chemicals are important drivers of impacts on ecological status in European surface waters

The ecological status of European surface waters may be affected by multiple stressors including exposure to chemical mixtures. Currently, two different approaches are used separately to inform water quality m...

Authors: Leo Posthuma, Werner Brack, Jos van Gils, Andreas Focks, Christin Müller, Dick de Zwart and Sebastian Birk

Improved component-based methods for mixture risk assessment are key to characterize complex chemical pollution in surface waters

The present monitoring and assessment of water quality problems fails to characterize the likelihood that complex mixtures of chemicals affect water quality. The European collaborative project SOLUTIONS sugges...

Authors: Leo Posthuma, Rolf Altenburger, Thomas Backhaus, Andreas Kortenkamp, Christin Müller, Andreas Focks, Dick de Zwart and Werner Brack

Mixture risks threaten water quality: the European Collaborative Project SOLUTIONS recommends changes to the WFD and better coordination across all pieces of European chemicals legislation to improve protection from exposure of the aquatic environment to multiple pollutants

Evidence is mounting that chemicals can produce joint toxicity even when combined at levels that singly do not pose risks. Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) defined for single pollutants under the Water Fr...

Authors: Andreas Kortenkamp, Michael Faust, Thomas Backhaus, Rolf Altenburger, Martin Scholze, Christin Müller, Sibylle Ermler, Leo Posthuma and Werner Brack

The RiBaTox web tool: selecting methods to assess and manage the diverse problem of chemical pollution in surface waters

Chemical pollution of water bodies is a complex problem around the globe. When described by the extremes of the range of problem definitions, water bodies can be chemically polluted by a single compound that i...

Authors: Kees J. M. Kramer, Frank Sleeuwaert, Guy Engelen, Christin Müller, Werner Brack and Leo Posthuma

A holistic approach is key to protect water quality and monitor, assess and manage chemical pollution of European surface waters

Chemical pollution of surface waters is a societal concern around the globe. Key problems in current water quality protection, assessment and management are the narrow focus on a small fraction of the chemical...

Authors: Leo Posthuma, John Munthe, Jos van Gils, Rolf Altenburger, Christin Müller, Jaroslav Slobodnik and Werner Brack

Prioritisation of water pollutants: the EU Project SOLUTIONS proposes a methodological framework for the integration of mixture risk assessments into prioritisation procedures under the European Water Framework Directive

Current prioritisation procedures under the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) do not account for risks from chemical mixtures. SOLUTIONS proposes a multiple-lines-of-evidence approach to tackle the problem ef...

Authors: Michael Faust, Thomas Backhaus, Rolf Altenburger, Valeria Dulio, Jos van Gils, Antoni Ginebreda, Andreas Kortenkamp, John Munthe, Leo Posthuma, Jaroslav Slobodnik, Knut Erik Tollefsen, Annemarie van Wezel and Werner Brack

Establish data infrastructure to compile and exchange environmental screening data on a European scale

Robust techniques based on liquid (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS) enable sensitive screening, identification, and (semi)quantification of thousands of su...

Authors: Jaroslav Slobodnik, Juliane Hollender, Tobias Schulze, Emma L. Schymanski and Werner Brack

Increase coherence, cooperation and cross-compliance of regulations on chemicals and water quality

An analysis of existing regulatory frameworks for chemicals reveals a fragmented situation with a number of regulatory frameworks designed for specific groups of chemicals; for protection of different end-poin...

Authors: John Munthe, Jenny Lexén, Tina Skårman, Leo Posthuma, Werner Brack, Rolf Altenburger, Eva Brorström-Lundén, Dirk Bunke, Michael Faust, Magnus Rahmberg, Frank Sleeuwaert, Jaroslav Slobodnik, Jos van Gils and Annemarie van Wezel

Strengthen the European collaborative environmental research to meet European policy goals for achieving a sustainable, non-toxic environment

To meet the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals and the European Union (EU) strategy for a non-toxic environment, water resources and ecosystems management require cost-efficient solutions for p...

Authors: Werner Brack, Selim Ait-Aissa, Thomas Backhaus, Sebastian Birk, Damià Barceló, Rob Burgess, Ian Cousins, Valeria Dulio, Beate I. Escher, Andreas Focks, Jos van Gils, Antoni Ginebreda, Daniel Hering, L. Mark Hewitt, Klára Hilscherová, Juliane Hollender…

High-resolution mass spectrometry to complement monitoring and track emerging chemicals and pollution trends in European water resources

Currently, chemical monitoring based on priority substances fails to consider the majority of known environmental micropollutants not to mention the unexpected and unknown chemicals that may contribute to the ...

Authors: Werner Brack, Juliane Hollender, Miren López de Alda, Christin Müller, Tobias Schulze, Emma Schymanski, Jaroslav Slobodnik and Martin Krauss

Seasonal distribution, gas–particle partitioning and inhalation exposure of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in gas and particle phases

Atmosphere is one of the sources and sinks to gas- and particle-bound brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Therefore, BFRs can enter human body via inhalation. In the present study, 79 of gas- and particle-phas...

Authors: Yuan Meng, Hongli Zhang, Yanling Qiu, Xinyu Du, Dong Niu, Zhibo Lu, Zhiliang Zhu, Jianfu Zhao and Daqiang Yin

Ensuring sustainability in plastics use in Africa: consumption, waste generation, and projections

Currently, plastic is at the top of the international agenda for waste management. Recent meetings of the Conferences of the Parties to the Basel and the Stockholm Conventions have expressed concerns over the ...

Authors: Joshua O. Babayemi, Innocent C. Nnorom, Oladele Osibanjo and Roland Weber

The accessibility of data on environmental risk assessment of pharmaceuticals: Is the marketing authorisation procedure in conflict with the international right of access to environmental information?

For a large part of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) available on the market, there is no or no comprehensive environmental risk assessment (ERA) existent/available. Existing ERAs are, moreover, tr...

Authors: Kim Oelkers and Carolin Floeter

Prediction of fecal indicator organism concentrations in rivers: the shifting role of environmental factors under varying flow conditions

Fecal indicator organisms such as Escherichia coli, enterococci, and coliphages are important to assess, monitor, and predict microbial water quality in natural freshwater ecosystems. To improve predictive modell...

Authors: Ilona Herrig, Wolfgang Seis, Helmut Fischer, Julia Regnery, Werner Manz, Georg Reifferscheid and Simone Böer

Assessing the leaching behavior of different gunshot materials in natural spring waters

Owing to the high environmental risk of lead-based gunshot, especially as the main source of acute lead poisoning in waterfowl, restrictions on its use in European wetlands are being put into place. In order t...

Authors: Julian Fäth and Axel Göttlein

Carbonized metal–organic frameworks with trapped cobalt nanoparticles as biocompatible and efficient azo-dye adsorbent

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) derived carbonaceous materials functionalized with metal/metal-oxide nanoparticles are obtained by its carbonization. The carbonization of MOFs occurs simultaneously with the me...

Authors: Martyna Trukawka, Krzysztof Cendrowski, Magdalena Peruzynska, Adrian Augustyniak, Pawel Nawrotek, Marek Drozdzik and Ewa Mijowska

Partitioning behavior, source identification, and risk assessment of perfluorinated compounds in an industry-influenced river

The widespread application of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) makes them ubiquitously distributed in the environment. Investigation of contamination profiles, distribution, possible sources and risks of PFCs i...

Authors: Jiapei Lv, Changsheng Guo, Shuxuan Liang, Yuan Zhang and Jian Xu

Relevance of body weight effects for the population development of common voles and its significance in regulatory risk assessment of pesticides in the European Union

The common vole (Microtus arvalis) is typically the wild mammal species driving regulatory pesticide risk assessment (RA) in Europe. The risk assessment endpoint for wild mammals is taken from the studies conduct...

Authors: Magnus Wang, Markus Ebeling and Jörg Hahne

Assessment of pesticides in surface water samples from Swedish agricultural areas by integrated bioanalysis and chemical analysis

Pesticide residue contamination of surface water in agricultural areas can have adverse effects on the ecosystem. We have performed an integrated chemical and bioanalytical profiling of surface water samples f...

Authors: Johan Lundqvist, Claudia von Brömssen, Anna Kjerstine Rosenmai, Åsa Ohlsson, Theo Le Godec, Ove Jonsson, Jenny Kreuger and Agneta Oskarsson

A critical evaluation of EFSA’s environmental risk assessment of genetically modified maize MON810 for honeybees and earthworms

In the European Union (EU), genetically modified (GM) crops are permitted for cultivation only after a thorough risk assessment and a decision by the European Commission (EC). The central scientific body asses...

Authors: Veronika Chvátalová

How should we deal with the interfaces between chemicals, product and waste legislation?

In the 7th Environment Action Programme, the European Commission targets two essential goals in the handling of substances and materials known by the buzzwords “non-toxic environment” and “circular economy”. T...

Authors: Henning Friege, Beate Kummer, Klaus Günter Steinhäuser, Joachim Wuttke and Barbara Zeschmar-Lahl

Let us empower the WFD to prevent risks of chemical pollution in European rivers and lakes

Authors: Werner Brack, Selim Ait-Aissa, Rolf Altenburger, Ian Cousins, Valeria Dulio, Beate Escher, Andreas Focks, Antoni Ginebreda, Daniel Hering, Klára Hilscherová, Juliane Hollender, Henner Hollert, Andreas Kortenkamp, Miren López de Alda, Leo Posthuma, Emma Schymanski…

Assessing the neutralisation, wet deposition and source contributions of the precipitation chemistry over Europe during 2000–2017

The chemical composition of precipitation was assessed in 27 European countries from 2000 to 2017, offering a general point of view on the rainwater chemistry in Europe, contributing to a larger understanding ...

Authors: Ágnes Keresztesi, Marius-Victor Birsan, Ion-Andrei Nita, Zsolt Bodor and Róbert Szép

Investigating regional source and sink patterns of Alpine CO₂ and CH₄ concentrations based on a back trajectory receptor model

The main purpose of this paper is to contribute to the improvement in the present knowledge concerning regional carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) exchange as an essential step towards reducing the uncertaint...

Authors: Esther Giemsa, Jucundus Jacobeit, Ludwig Ries and Stephan Hachinger

Hazard grouping of nanomaterials for daphnia and algae toxicity: lessons learned from scientific projects for regulatory applicability

Given the numerous manufactured nanomaterials already on the market and expected in future, the effort for the individual investigation of hazard and risk would be enormous. To overcome this challenge, groupin...

Authors: Kathrin Schwirn and Doris Völker

Climate finance and green growth: reconsidering climate-related institutions, investments, and priorities in Nepal

Nepal, a least-developed, mountainous, and land-locked country is consistently ranked as one of the most vulnerable countries to the climate change. Poor socioeconomic development, rough and highly unstable ge...

Authors: Tek Jung Mahat, Luděk Bláha, Batu Uprety and Michal Bittner

Prioritising site-specific micropollutants in surface water from LC-HRMS non-target screening data using a rarity score

Current compound prioritisation and monitoring approaches within Europe focus mainly on widely occurring priority and river basin specific pollutants but may overlook site-specific contamination from local emi...

Authors: Martin Krauss, Christine Hug, Robert Bloch, Tobias Schulze and Werner Brack

The EU Horizon 2020 project GRACE: integrated oil spill response actions and environmental effects

This article introduces the EU Horizon 2020 research project GRACE (Integrated oil spill response actions and environmental effects), which focuses on a holistic approach towards investigating and understandin...

Authors: Kirsten S. Jørgensen, Anne Kreutzer, Kari K. Lehtonen, Harri Kankaanpää, Jorma Rytkönen, Susse Wegeberg, Kim Gustavson, Janne Fritt-Rasmussen, Jaak Truu, Tarmo Kõuts, Madis-Jaak Lilover, Thomas-Benjamin Seiler, Henner Hollert, Sarah Johann, Ionan Marigómez, Manu Soto…

Correction to: Spatiotemporal variation and source apportionment of organotin compounds in sediments in the Yangtze Estuary

The authors note a correction to the article [1]. Figure 1 of the original article is incomplete. Diaoyu Island, Chiwei Yu and the Dongsha Islands are missing. This article presents the corrected version of Fi...

Authors: Chunzhao Chen, Ling Chen, Rui Xue, Qinghui Huang, Lingling Wu, Shufeng Ye and Wen Zhang

High resolution mass spectrometry-based non-target screening can support regulatory environmental monitoring and chemicals management

Non-target screening (NTS) including suspect screening with high resolution mass spectrometry has already shown its feasibility in detecting and identifying emerging contaminants, which subsequently triggered ...

Authors: Juliane Hollender, Bert van Bavel, Valeria Dulio, Eivind Farmen, Klaus Furtmann, Jan Koschorreck, Uwe Kunkel, Martin Krauss, John Munthe, Martin Schlabach, Jaroslav Slobodnik, Gerard Stroomberg, Thomas Ternes, Nikolaos S. Thomaidis, Anne Togola and Victoria Tornero

Treatment performance comparison between regular O₃–BAC and O₃–BAC with rear sand filtration: verification in a full-scale study

To improve the microbial safety of drinking water, an arrangement of O₃–BAC with rear sand filtration (O₃–BAC–sand) has been proposed. In this study, efforts were devoted to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of...

Authors: Kai Yang, Jianwei Yu, Qingyuan Guo, Chunmiao Wang, Ping Xia, Y. Jeffrey Yang and Min Yang

Kinetic and mechanistic study of sulfadimidine photodegradation under simulated sunlight irradiation

The extensive uses of sulfadimidine (SDMD) resulted in its presence in water bodies, and subsequent posed risks to eco-environment and human health. In this study, photodegradation of SDMD in water was studied...

Authors: Zhineng Hao, Changsheng Guo, Jiapei Lv, Yan Zhang, Yuan Zhang and Jian Xu