An innovative and comprehensive study to identify relevant emerging contaminants in French surface waters

Fabrizio Botta (1) , Valeria Dulio (1) , François Lestremau (1) , Sandrine Andres (1) , Selim Ait-Aissa (1) , François Brion (1) , Nicolas Creusot (1) , Christine Feray (1) , Wilfried Sanchez (1, 2) , F. Alliot (3) , Marc Chevreuil (3) , Marie-Hélène Devier (4) , Pierre Labadie (4) , Hélène Budzinski (4) , Cécile Cren (5) , Emmanuelle Vulliet (5) , David Amouroux (6) , Mathilde Monperrus (6) , Anne Morin (1)

1 INERIS - Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques
2 SEBIO - Stress Environnementaux et BIOsurveillance des milieux aquatiques
3 EPHE - École Pratique des Hautes Études
4 LPTC - Laboratoire de Physico -& Toxico Chimie des systèmes naturels
5 ISA-TRACES - Technologie et Recherche en Analyse Chimique pour l'Environnement et la Santé
6 LCABIE - Laboratoire de Chimie Analytique Bio-Inorganique et Environnement

As part of the implementation of the National Action Plan on Micropollutants in the Aquatic Environment, the French Ministry of Ecology a large national screening study took place in 2012 in France. INERIS was charged with the design and technical implementation of this project for surface water. For the selection and prioritisation of the watch list compounds the National Expert Group for prioritisation of substances (CEP) decided to adopt the criteria of the NORMAN methodology for prioritisation of emerging substances.That methodology uses a decision tree that first classifies chemicals into six categories, on the basis of the existing knowledge gaps and the actions to be taken to fill them. The priority within each category is then ranked on the basis of specific indicators, which allows a score to be calculated. For surface water three campaigns were performed on water matrix and one in sediments at about 159 sampling points. Grab sampling was applied on all sites. In addition, passive samplers (POCIS) were deploied in 20 rivers in order to allow the implementation of bioassays. Sampling was carried out according to AQUAREF’s (National Reference Laboratory for Aquatic Environment) technical specifications and a unique courier was selected for transport of samples to the laboratories. The analytical work for a given group of compounds was performed by one single laboratory in order to ensure data comparability. Four academic laboratories were selected for chemical analyses. 170 substances were finally selected for chemical analysis in water and sediment.The benefits of this innovative approach for identification of relevant emerging contaminants are i) a unique prioritisation scheme (NORMAN Network) applied at French national level for substance and site selection; ii) Information on occurrence, source and variability for 170 substances (50 000 robust analytical data items) ; iii) an efficient method for data collection, validation and exploitation thanks to a unique data collection template and an exhaustive set of metadata; iv) the application of effect-based tools to classify 20 sites of various quality; to characterise site contamination a panel of in vitro and in vivo bioassays were deployed as well as biomarkers to assess impacts of pollutants in wild population of fish.The results contributed to the selection of substances to be integrated in the national river basins monitoring programmes.

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement; Ingénierie de l'environnement; Ecotoxicologie

Fabrizio Botta, Valeria Dulio, François Lestremau, Sandrine Andres, Selim Ait-Aissa, et al.. An innovative and comprehensive study to identify relevant emerging contaminants in French surface waters. 24. SETAC Europe annual meeting "Science across bridges, borders and boundaries", May 2014, Bâle, Switzerland. pp.100. ⟨ineris-01862422⟩