Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Introduction
Published in Michael J. Kennish, Ecology of Estuaries: Anthropogenic Effects, 2019
The bioaccumulation of pollutants in the tissues of aquatic organisms is particularly important because it has been widely used to delineate the degree of contamination of estuarine waters. Toxicologists often employ the terms “bioconcentration” and “biomagnification” when describing bioaccumulation. Bioconcentration refers to an organism’s ability to accumulate a contaminant significantly in excess of that in the ambient water. Biomagnification, in turn, is the concentration of a pollutant up the food chain such that relatively low levels accumulate in organisms at the base of the chain and higher levels, possibly reaching harmful or lethal doses, in organisms at the to of the chain.20 While certain substances may consistently exhibit a bioconcentration effect in biota, they do not necessarily biomagnify up the food chain. Manee21 has shown this to be the case among heavy metals.
Natural attenuation in contaminated soil remediation
Published in Katalin Gruiz, Tamás Meggyes, Éva Fenyvesi, Engineering Tools for Environmental Risk Management – 4, 2019
Biomagnification means multiple bioaccumulations along the food chain, resulting in the worst-case deadly concentrations in top predators or predator-eating humans even if the accumulation rate is not very high in the individual food chain stages.
Role of Incineration in the Production of Persistent Organic Pollutants: Is It Safe?
Published in Narendra Kumar, Vertika Shukla, Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Environment, 2021
Gagandeep Kour, Kajol Goria, Ashish Pathak, Richa Kothari, Deepak Pathania, Sunil Dhar, V. V. Tyagi
During the 20th century, with advancements in human development, urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural activities, chemicals have been introduced into the environment, including persistent organic pollutants (POPs). POPs can be defined as carbon-based organic compounds which, once released into the atmosphere, remain intact for a long period, resisting photolytic, chemical, and biological degradation (Tieyu et al., 2005). Being less water soluble and highly lipid soluble, they bioaccumulate in the fatty tissues of living organisms. Characteristics of unusually high persistence, bioaccumulation, and biomagnification, coupled with other properties like long-range transport, have resulted in the wide distribution of POPs all over the world, including the Arctic region (Jepson and Law, 2016); they have been found even in remote regions where there are no sources of them. POP concentrations have been monitored on every continent and in every climatic zone. Polar areas in both hemispheres have been found to record higher levels of POPs (Devi, 2020). Due to bioaccumulation and biomagnification, POP persistence has been found in soil, water, sediments, fish fat, animal fat, and human breast milk (Tieyu et al., 2005, Douglas et al., 2016). Their persistence and wide occurrence pose a serious threat to human health and the environment. Research studies have suggested mild to severe health concerns from POP exposure, including skin allergies, hypersensitivity, dysfunctioning of the central nervous system, disruption of the immune and reproductive systems, endocrine disruption, and many more.
Residues of xenobiotics in the environment and phytotoxic activity in Armenia
Published in Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A, 2019
Natalya S. Tadevosyan, Susanna B. Poghosyan, Bavakan G. Khachatryan, Susanna A. Muradyan, Hasmik A. Guloyan, Ashot N. Tshantshapanyan, Nicholas J. Hutchings, Artashes E. Tadevosyan
Pollution by POPs is a major global environmental problem: POPs are resistant to natural degradation processes and have the propensity for bioaccumulation and biomagnification, where even low POPs content in air, water and soil can result in significant concentrations in the highest levels of food chain. POPs are capable of transboundary transport over long distances, and thus no country is able to reduce risks alone. Rather, reducing the human health risk of POPs is a complicated task that can only be solved by common efforts of the global community. This approach served as the foundation for the development of the “Convention on persistent organic pollutants” (Stockholm Convention), to which the Republic of Armenia has been a party to since 2003. According to the provisions of the Convention, the “National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Republic of Armenia for 2016–2020” was developed and officially approved by the Governmental Decree of the Republic of Armenia (No. 49 of December 8, 2016). The list of activities includes research on studying and monitoring and levels of OCPs in the environment, the effects on the human organism, and assessing the risk of the pesticides to population health and to the environment.[30,31]
Trophic transfer, bioaccumulation, and biomagnification of non-essential hazardous heavy metals and metalloids in food chains/webs—Concepts and implications for wildlife and human health
Published in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal, 2019
Before going into the details of this section, it is time to clear the concepts of some important terms: trophic transfer, bioconcentration, dietary accumulation, bioaccumulation, biomagnification, and trophodynamics. These terms are described below and depicted in Figure 3. Trophic transfer (also called biotransference) refers to the passage of a contaminant in food chains, from one trophic level to the next.Bioconcentration refers to the accumulation of a contaminant in an organism as a result of its uptake from the ambient abiotic environment.Dietary accumulation refers to the accumulation of a contaminant in an organism as a result of its uptake from the organism's food/diet.Bioaccumulation refers to the accumulation of a contaminant in an organism as a result of its uptake from both the ambient abiotic environment and the organism's food/diet.Biomagnification refers to the increase in concentration of a contaminant along a food chain, that is, along successive trophic levels in a food chain.Biodilution refers to the decrease in concentration of a contaminant along a food chain.Trophodynamics refers to the study of trophic transfer of a chemical in food chains
Progress on electrochemical sensors for the determination of heavy metal ions from contaminated water
Published in Journal of the Chinese Advanced Materials Society, 2018
Xiangzi Dai, Shuping Wu, Songjun Li
Generally, heavy metals are defined as that the metal density is more than 4.5 g/cm3, including copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), gold (Au), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn) and so on. In the environmental pollution field, heavy metal are refer to highly toxic heavy elements, like mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), chromium (Cr) and metallic arsenic (As). Mostly heavy metals can cause serious harmful effects on humans and environment due to their high toxic and enhanced reactivity.[1] With the development of industrial and agricultural manufacture, heavy metal contamination has been becoming a serious problem. The heavy metal pollutants in the environment are difficult to degrade by nature and will accumulate in vivo of animals and plants. Though only small amounts of heavy metals are consumed, when larger animals that are higher up in the food chain eat the bottom feeders, a higher concentration of the toxin is then present in their body. This food chain reaction is called biomagnification. Since humans are at the top in the food chain, humans are extremely affected by biomagnification, making it a subtle yet dangerous problem.[2–4] The term has particular application to cadmium, mercury, lead, chromium and arsenic, all of which appear in the World Health Organisation's list of 10 chemicals of major public concern. For instance, Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. Minamata disease patients have the clinical symptoms that include dementia, hand and foot facial paralysis, general muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In 1950s, a serious heavy metal pollution incident occurred in Japan caused more than 10 thousand people infected with Minamata disease which was arisen by organic mercury poisoning, and about 500 of them died.[5] Medical studies have proved that cadmium can cause itai-itai disease after it enters human bodies. The main effects of cadmium poisoning are week and brittle bones.[6,7] Lead is harmful to human nervous, digestive, cardiovascular, blood, kidney and other systems, and leads to anemia, caries polyneuritis, fetal malformation, etc. Children are extremely sensitive to the toxicity of lead, which can cause nervous system problems including vascular disorders and injuries in the head and spinal cord.[8] Contamination with high levels of arsenic is of concern because arsenic can cause many human health effects. Arsenic exposure affects virtually all organ systems including the cardiovascular, dermatologic, nervous, liver, kidney, gastro-intestinal and respiratory systems.