Derivation methods of soils, water and sediments toxicity guidelines: A brief review with a focus on antimony

Abstract

Over the past few decades, many countries have issued legislation for risk based management of contaminated soils, sediments and water. Establishing appropriate guidelines for risk based management of antimony contaminated environments is of great importance due to its toxicological properties. Antimony (Sb) is a toxic metalloid with a wide range of industrial applications that can cause adverse effects on natural ecosystems and human health. There are numerous soil and water national and international toxicity guidelines, legislation and clean up target values for evaluating the risks and health hazards associated with Sb contaminated soils and water. Although they are not accurate definitive indices of environmental hazards, they can be used as a surrogate tool for estimating harmful effects of contaminants. In this summary report, five common soil and sediment toxicity guidelines set by the USA, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and Finland as well as some of water toxicity guidelines and their derivation methods are compared. There are, however, substantial variations between toxicity threshold values due to the different scientific bases, software models and ecotoxicological criteria used for developing these guidelines. It is evident from the literature that site specific factors e.g. redox potential, pH and ageing may greatly affect the environmental availability of Sb. Hence, establishing universally acceptable regulatory guidelines and toxicity essays with an array of bioavailability based approach and site specific considerations would greatly improve the reliability and robustness of the current techniques used for environmental management and remediation of contaminated soils.