"Application of an ecosystem model for aquatic ecological risk assessment of chemicals for a Japanese lake" 

Wataru Naoto¹, Ken-ichi Miyamoto¹, Shigeki Masunaga², Steven M. Bartell³, Junko Nakanishi¹

¹National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
²Yokohama National University
³The Cadmus Group (USA)

Water Research, Vol.36 pp.1-14 (2002)

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Abstract

The Lake Suwa version of the comprehensive aquatic systems model (CASM SUWA) was developed using field data from Lake Suwa and evaluated to examine the utility of ASM SUWA forassessing the ecological riskof chemicals for aquatic ecosystems. The calibration of the parameters for the model providedthat the established reference model simulation could reproduce complex seasonal biomass behavior of populations that were not significantly different from the general seasonal pattern for the Lake Suwa ecosystem. 

The sensitivity analyses revealed the potential importance of indirect effects and monstrated that the parameter values of all the trophic levels were important in determining the biomass of each trophic level in the model. The riskestimation of linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) demonstrated that the model estimated the risks of direct toxic effects on each population and the indirect ecological effects that propagate through the food-web in the model ecosystem. 

The CASM SUWA-derived benchmarklevels were approximately one order of magnitude less than the field-derived NOECs in literature. The analyses of the comparison implied that the model could provide a good basis in determining an ecological protective level of a chemical of concern in aquatic ecosystem. This modeling study demonstrated that the model can be used to provide additional information for the decision-making process in the management of the aquatic ecological risk of chemicals."

Keywords

aquatic system model, suwa, LAS, ecosystem, NOECs