Premium
Performance characteristics of effluent toxicity tests: Variability and its implications for regulatory policy
Author(s) -
WarrenHicks William,
Parkhurst Benjamin R.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
environmental toxicology and chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1552-8618
pISSN - 0730-7268
DOI - 10.1002/etc.5620110608
Subject(s) - effluent , daphnia magna , toxicity , pollutant , toxicology , environmental science , cladocera , biology , ceriodaphnia dubia , statistics , environmental chemistry , ecology , mathematics , environmental engineering , chemistry , organic chemistry , crustacean
An essential consideration when imposing a requirement for, or evaluating the results generated by, effluent toxicity tests in the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program is the amount of uncertainty in the measured test end point Variability in effluent toxicity test results is explored by examining round‐robin test data with Daphnia magna , fathead minnows, and Certodaphnia dubia as test organisms Inter and intralaboratory percentages of survival of the test organisms are examined by using plots, descriptive statistics, and logistic regression models The results of the analyses demonstrate that the variation in survival is large (0‐100% for some test solutions) In addition, the amount of variability is shown to be a function of the toxicity of the test solution The variability in survival is shown to be larger than the variability associated with the LC50 (a model‐based end point) The large variability in effluent toxicity tests can have significant implications for the interpretation of toxicity test results used to measure compliance with effluent toxicity limits