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VISUALIZING THE RELATIONSHIP OF PBTS IN WATER AND SEDIMENT TO RESIDUES IN FISH
Citation:
Burkhard, L P., P. M. Cook, AND D. Mount. VISUALIZING THE RELATIONSHIP OF PBTS IN WATER AND SEDIMENT TO RESIDUES IN FISH. Presented at 2002 SETAC Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT, November 16-20, 2002.
Description:
Bioaccumulation of persistent bioaccumulative toxicants (PBTs) in aquatic organisms results from uptake of the chemicals through several different exposure routes associated with water, sediment, and biota. This paper presents an approach for depicting and interpreting bioaccumulation relationships and data. The approach is based on five basic parameters that affect bioaccumulation of non-ionic organic PBTs: 1) the distribution of chemical between sediment and water, 2) the hydrophobicity of the compound (KOW), 3) the relationship of food chains to water and sediment, 4) the length of the food chains, and 5) the degree to which the chemical is metabolized. Using a simple water-sediment chemical concentration XY plot, BAFs, BSAFs, and chemical residues in fish are related to model predicted combinations of chemical concentrations in sediment and water so that the relative and quantitative influences of chemical, biological, and ecological variables can be easily understood and assessed. Since a standard food chain model (Gobas 1993) is used to derive these relationships, the underpinnings of the approach are not new. However, we feel that the resulting approach captures and visually presents the existing bioaccumulation knowledge in a form which is readily understandable and therefore useful in the assessment, communication, and management of risk from PBTs.