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Linking Water Quality and Aquatic Life with AQUATOX 3.2
Citation:
Clough, J., B. Rashleigh, R. Parmar, AND M. Wellman. Linking Water Quality and Aquatic Life with AQUATOX 3.2. U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, Washington, DC, EPA/600/F-18/329, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
One of the biggest challenges to protecting or restoring our nation’s waters is adequately understanding the relationships between the environment and the organisms that live there. Ecosystems are complex, with natural variations over time, and multiple interactions between components. The health of biological communities in many water bodies is impaired, but the causes of the impairment may not be obvious due to numerous environmental stressors. It is difficult to predict how the aquatic community will respond to changes in pollutants or environmental conditions using simple methods of analysis, especially if those methods address only one stressor at a time. A complex simulation model like AQUATOX may be more effective. AQUATOX can be used to better understand the processes relating the chemical and physical environment to the biological community. AQUATOX can be used to: develop and evaluate numeric nutrient targets based on desired biological endpoints; evaluate which of several stressors is causing observed biological impairment; predict effects of pesticides and other toxic substances on aquatic life; and estimate time to recovery of fish tissues to safe levels after reducing pollutant loads.EPA has released AQUATOX Release 3.2, which extends the existing AQUATOX estuarine version to include improved capabilities for situations encountered in the nearshore marine environment. In addition, the graphical user interface was updated and modernized to add capabilities and to increase user friendliness.
Description:
AQUATOX is an ecosystem simulation model that predicts the environmental fate of various pollutants, such as excess nutrients and organic chemicals, and their effects on aquatic ecosystems, including fish, invertebrates, and aquatic plants. AQUATOX is one of the preeminent tools available for ecosystem analysis and management and has been used all over the US and the world in a wide variety of ecological risk assessments. EPA has released AQUATOX Release 3.2 that extends the existing AQUATOX estuarine version to include improved capabilities for situations encountered in the nearshore marine environment. In addition, the graphical user interface was updated and modernized to add capabilities and to increase user friendliness.
URLs/Downloads:
AQUATOX FACTSHEET REL3.2_FINAL_TAGGED.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 466.114 KB, about PDF)https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-10/documents/aquatox_factsheet_rel3.2_final.pdf