Chemical Mixtures in Water Environment: From Monitoring Methods to Recommendations for Regulatory Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Hundreds of thousands of tons of micropollutants, including, among others, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, personal care, and industrial products, are discharged into the water environment from agricultural, urban, and industrial areas. Current environmental policies do not account for risks from chemical mixtures, only proving safety thresholds for single substances. Experimental evidence on mixture effects and additive toxicity casts doubt regarding protective levels against combined exposures even if each toxicant is present below its individual threshold concentration. The complex relationships among the environmental variables and pollutants make monitoring data interpretation difficult in terms of toxic impact, considering that even pollutants at very low concentration might contribute to the total toxicity of a mixture. Environmental monitoring from the past few years provides strong evidence that organisms in their environments are exposed to a mixture of contaminants rather than single pollutants. For these reasons, there is an increasing interest in the use of effect-based methods for the identification of ecotoxicological risks of chemical mixtures in surface waters. Nevertheless, standardized criteria and data evaluation are needed, and safety threshold values have to be defined before the implementation of effect-based methods in a legal framework.

This Special Issue will focus on highlighting timely research studies addressing the monitoring and the toxic risk of chemical mixtures in surface waters, especially focusing on supporting policy and on the protection of the environment and human health. Topics are expected to include any chemical agent mixtures covering a broad base of scientific questions related to the toxicity of chemical mixtures in the water environment, including modern approaches to improve the monitoring of mixtures in surface waters. Studies may also deal with all aspects related to hazard and risk assessment of chemical mixtures as well as risk management in the context of chemical regulation and environmental policy. This also includes studies devoted to a better use of monitoring data in ecological and human health risk assessment. Authors are invited and welcome to submit original research papers, reviews, and short communications.

Dr. Roberta Carafa
Guest Editor

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• chemical mixtures
• mixture toxicity
• water quality
• water monitoring
• risk assessment
• regulatory support