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Ocean liming (OL) is a potential carbon dioxide removal (CDR) method that aims to increase the ocean's capacity to absorb atmospheric CO2 by adding hydrated lime to the surface ocean. Modeling studies indicate that OL may cause temporary pH spikes lasting several minutes, depending on the lime sparging rate. Little is known about the short-term effects of these spikes on marine organisms. Aim of the present study is to investigate these effects on the copepod Acartia tonsa. Copepods were exposed to different pH conditions (9, 10, 11, 12) by dosing different hydrated lime solutions. Copepod mortality, movements, and behavior were recorded. At pH 9 for short exposure times ([removed]6 h) and pH higher than 9, negative effects (mortality and sublethal effects) were found significantly higher than in the control.

The results of a first campaign of sampling and analyses of emerging micropollutants in the influent (municipal centrate) and effluent of a pilot MBP raceway are reported. The algal population was chiefly made of Chlorella spp. and the pilot worked satisfactorily for the removal of nitrogen. 14 emerging micropollutants were analysed. Average removal efficiencies exceeding 80 % were observed for diclofenac, lamotrigine, ketoprofene, clarithromycin. For such compounds the variability of removal efficiency was also reduced, with respect to the other tested molecules, and was particularly low for diclofenac and lamotrigine. Removal efficiencies over 50 % were measured for azithromycin, metoprolol and irbesartan but with strong variability. Lower removal efficiencies were observed for amisulpride and 5-methylbenzotriazole, while for the remaining compounds the concentrations in the effluent were higher than in the influent.

The great concern over the environmental impact of wastewaters has led to the designing of advanced treatment processes to upgrade conventional treatment plants and achieve a significant reduction of contaminants in receiving waters. In the present study we combined chemical and ecotoxicological analyses, aiming to evaluate the reduction of toxicity effects associated with the removal of micropollutants and to define the contribution of the detected compounds to the overall toxicity of the mixtures in a series of wastewater effluents collected from a secondary treatment (OUT 2) and from a tertiary activated carbon treatment (OUT 3) plant. The target compounds were selected after a screening procedure among pharmaceuticals, musk fragrances, and trace metals. The classical algal growth inhibition test was conducted on the original effluent samples and on different fractions obtained by solid-phase extraction (SPE) treatment. A good accordance was found between the removal of toxicity (30%–80%) and organic compounds (70%–80%) after the tertiary treatment, suggesting its high efficiency to improve the wastewater quality. The discrepancy between the contribution to the overall toxicity of the nonadsorbable compounds (i.e., inorganic or very polar organic compounds) as experimentally measured by the SPE bioassays (18%–76%) and calculated by the concentration addition approach (>97%) could be mitigated by including the bioavailability correction in metal-toxicity modeling of wastewater mixtures. For the organic compounds, the toxic equivalency method enabled us to quantify the portion of toxicity explained by the detected chemicals in both OUT 2 (82%–104%) and OUT 3 (5%–57%), validating the selection of the target molecules. The applied integrating approach could be implemented by the inclusion of both additional target chemicals and toxicity endpoints. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:2404–2419.

A collaborative trial involving 16 participants from nine European countries was conducted within the NORMAN network in efforts to harmonise suspect and non-target screening of environmental contaminants in whole fish samples of bream (Abramis brama). Participants were provided with freeze-dried, homogenised fish samples from a contaminated and a reference site, extracts (spiked and non-spiked) and reference sample preparation protocols for liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Participants extracted fish samples using their in-house sample preparation method and/or the protocol provided. Participants correctly identified 9-69% of spiked compounds using LC-HRMS and 20-60% of spiked compounds using GC-HRMS. From the contaminated site, suspect screening with participants’ own suspect lists led to putative identification of on average ∼145 and ∼20 unique features per participant using LC-HRMS and GC-HRMS, respectively, while non-target screening identified on average ∼42 and ∼56 unique features per participant using LC-HRMS and GC-HRMS, respectively. Within the same sub-group of sample preparation method, only a few features were identified by at least two participants in suspect screening (16 features using LC-HRMS, 0 features using GC-HRMS) and non-target screening (0 features using LC-HRMS, 2 features using GC-HRMS). The compounds identified had log octanol/water partition coefficient (KOW) values ranging from -9.9 to 16 and mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) of 68 to 761 (LC-HRMS and GC-HRMS). A significant linear trend was found between log KOW and m/z for the GC-HRMS data. Overall, these findings indicate that differences in screening results are mainly due to the data analysis workflows used by different participants. Further work is needed to harmonise the results obtained when applying suspect and non-target screening approaches to environmental biota samples.

Whale sharks are known to aggregate in coastal areas. In the South Ari Marine Protected Area (Maldives) a aggregation, mostly represented by young males with a high level of residency, has been described in the literature. Despite the worldwide interest in the natural resources of the Maldives, this population is increasingly subjected to anthropogenic pressure and major concern regards the flourishing tourist industry. In this study, data collected by the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme between 2014 and 2017 have been used to detect both temporal and spatial patterns of occurrence. Favourable environmental conditions to visually detect whale sharks have been defined for the studied area. Accordingly, a total of 1077 shark encounters have been analysed in this study. Environmental conditions (i.e. sea surface temperature, monsoon occurrence) have been used to detect possible factors affecting the spatial and temporal variability of Rhincodon typus aggregations. A two-way ANOVA has been performed to detect temporal trends in animal occurrence, sea surface temperature pattern and to investigate the sea bottom depth variability during encounters. Significant differences in the monthly occurrence of whale sharks within the same year and among different years have been detected. Similar patterns have been observed for environmental parameters such as sea surface temperature and depth. A different spatial distribution has also been detected as a function of the Indian Monsoon reversal (north-eastern and south-western) affecting the area. During the northeast monsoon period, whale sharks appeared to concentrate in a smaller longitudinal range closer to the western-central part of the MPA, where deeper water conditions occur due to the proximity of a deep depression (submarine canyon). Results from this study provide new pieces of information for the implementation of dedicated management actions to protect the whale sharks population inhabiting the South Ari Marine

Zooplankton is a key node in many trophic webs, both for food that for persistent organic contaminants that can accumulate in biota. Zooplankton of different size was seasonally sampled for two years in three deep Italian subalpine lakes (Maggiore, Como, Iseo) with the aim of determining the concentrations of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), DDT, and PCB, and assessing the seasonality impacts on contaminants concentrations. In general, Lake Maggiore showed the highest concentrations for each group of contaminants, with mean values of 7.6 ng g-1 ww for PFAS, 65.0 ng g-1 dw for DDT, and 65.5 ng g-1 dw for PCB. When considering the composition pattern, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) was detected in 96% of the samples and it was the predominant PFAS compound in all of the lakes. pp' DDE was the most detected congener among DDTs and their metabolites, while for PCBs, the prevalent group was hexa-CB that constituted 35.4% of the total PCB contamination. A seasonal trend was highlighted for all contaminant groups with concentrations in colder months greater than in spring and summer; it was evident that the contaminant concentrations were more dependent from seasonality than from size, trophic levels, and taxa composition of zooplankton. Principal component analysis showed that one of the main driver for the accumulation of most of the studied contaminants is their lipophilicity, except for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and octachlorobiphenyl.

The Partnership for Chemicals Risk Assessment (PARC) is currently under development as a joint research and innovation programme to strengthen the scientific basis for chemical risk assessment in the EU. The plan is to bring chemical risk assessors and managers together with scientists to accelerate method development and the production of necessary data and knowledge, and to facilitate the transition to next-generation evidence-based risk assessment, a non-toxic environment and the European Green Deal. The NORMAN Network is an independent, well-established and competent network of more than 80 organisations in the field of emerging substances and has enormous potential to contribute to the implementation of the PARC partnership. NORMAN stands ready to provide expert advice to PARC, drawing on its long experience in the development, harmonisation and testing of advanced tools in relation to chemicals of emerging concern and in support of a European Early Warning System to unravel the risks of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and close the gap between research and innovation and regulatory processes. In this commentary we highlight the tools developed by NORMAN that we consider most relevant to supporting the PARC initiative: (i) joint data space and cutting-edge research tools for risk assessment of contaminants of emerging concern; (ii) collaborative European framework to improve data quality and comparability; (iii) advanced data analysis tools for a European early warning system and (iv) support to national and European chemical risk assessment thanks to harnessing, combining and sharing evidence and expertise on CECs. By combining the extensive knowledge and experience of the NORMAN network with the financial and policy-related strengths of the PARC initiative, a large step towards the goal of a non-toxic environment can be taken.