Published online 31 August 2007
Published in J Environ Qual 36:1383-1384 (2007)
DOI: 10.2134/jeq2007.0001
© 2007 American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America
677 S. Segoe Rd., Madison, WI 53711 USA
Bioavailability of Pollutants and Soil Remediation
José-Julio Ortega-Calvoa,*,
William P. Ballb,
Rainer Schulinc,
Kirk T. Sempled and
Lukas Y. Wicke
a Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología, C.S.I.C., Apartado 1052, E-41080-Seville, Spain
b Dep. of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins Univ., 313 Ames Hall, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-2686
c ETH Zürich, Inst. of Terrestrial Ecosystems (ITES), Universitätstr. 16, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland
d Dep. of Environmental Science, Lancaster Univ., Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, United Kingdom
e UFZ Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Permosertraße 15, D-04318 Leipzig, Germany
* Corresponding author (jjortega{at}irnase.csic.es).
Received for publication July 31, 2007.
BIOAVAILABILITY research over the last 15 yr has revealed that profound knowledge of the principles of bioavailability is indispensable for improved risk assessment and remediation of polluted environments. Given the legal and regulatory implications of the bioavailability concept as part of the risk assessment framework, the term must be clearly understood. In many current risk assessment routines, the risk arising from a chemical is inferred on the basis of its concentration in a given environment without considering its bioavailability, thermodynamic activity, or potential for transport under the prevailing conditions. Such approaches generally tend to overestimate the risk (Alexander, 2000). Moreover, the associated cleanup targets usually also refer to measurable total concentrations of environmental chemicals, even though targets based on actual bioavailability and related risk would be more appropriate. Efforts to further our understanding of bioavailability principles are useful steps toward developing better management approaches and are especially important in times of scarce financial resources.
Within the above context, it is a great pleasure to present these special submissions to Journal of Environmental Quality. This special issue contains a representative selection of peer-reviewed papers based on contributions given to the international workshop "Bioavailability of Pollutants and Soil Remediation" held in Seville, Spain, 10–13 Sept. 2006 (http://www.bioavail2006.com; verified 31 July 2007). The meeting, organized by the Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (CSIC), was the fourth and latest in a series of workshops on Bioavailability in the Terrestrial Environment, held under the auspices of the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE), Adelaide, Australia. Previous workshops took place in Adelaide (2001), Monte Veritá, Switzerland (2003), and Adelaide (2004). The Seville workshop hosted a total of 161 researchers from Europe, USA, Asia, and Australia.
Due to its close vicinity to Aznalcollar in Spain, Seville provided an ideal setting to bring together leading scientists representing bioavailability-oriented, environmental research groups to discuss and advance these and other gaps of knowledge in the field. In Aznalcollar, one of the largest land pollution accidents recorded in European history occurred in 1998 (Grimalt et al., 1999). Approximately 2 million cubic meters of mud containing toxic metals were spread over an area of 4286 ha in the direct surroundings of Doñana Park, the largest reserve of bird species in Europe. Despite substantial remediation activities and extensive follow-up work, the long-term effects of the accident are still poorly known. This uncertainty is typical of situations often encountered at many polluted sites all over the world.
Following the tradition of prior bioavailability workshops, the Seville workshop's program was designed to explore new axes of bioavailability research by combining the latest research with a novel understanding of bioavailability and its role in risk assessment approaches for a variety of pollutant types. Both the social and scientific complexities associated with the problem of bioavailability of soil-bound chemicals require a multidisciplinary and international collaboration of disciplines. Many countries have proceeded independently in their conception of soil pollution, as reflected by their differing environmental regulations. The workshop sessions covered 37 oral and 124 poster communications grouped into eight topics: Physicochemical Mechanisms; Biodiversity; Methods to Determine Bioavailability; Mixed Contaminants and Oxyanions; Remediation of Organics and Metals; Bioavailability and Its Management; Risk Assessment and Legal Aspects. Presentations were followed by focused afternoon discussion groups to identify the future research needs. The special submissions to this JEQ issue constitute some of the useful ideas and concepts that were orally presented and discussed at the 2006 Bioavailability Workshop. A companion special issue of Environmental Geochemistry and Health contains short papers from selected poster contributions (to be published in 2008). Together, these issues provide a representative distillation of current bioavailability understanding, as represented at this well-attended international forum.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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The publication of these submissions would not have been possible without helpful suggestions, valuable advice, and assistance of the referees and the members of the scientific committee of the symposium. The local organizer (J.-J. O.-C.) thanks the International Committee members Ravi Naidu, Satish Gupta, and Hauke Harms for their confidence and support in organizing the event. The following institutions gave economical support to the workshop: Fundación BBVA, CRC CARE, Spanish Ministries of Environment and Education, Andalucian Government (Environment and Innovation agencies), IFAPA, and CSIC.
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REFERENCES
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- Alexander, M. 2000. Aging, bioavailability, and overestimation of risk from enviromental pollutants. Environ. Sci. Technol. 34:4259–4265.
- Grimalt, J.O., M. Ferrer, and E. Macpherson. 1999. The mine tailing accident in Aznalcollar. Sci. Total Environ. 242:3–11.[CrossRef][Medline]
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