Hazardous Substances Assessment in Black Sea Biota

Abstract

"The assessment of contaminants in biota is important, not only for biomonitoring of the marine pollution, but also in case of biota used for human consumption there are further implications with respect to public health reasons. Since data on this topic are rather limited in the Black Sea region, activities carried out in the framework of CBC Project “Assessing the vulnerability of the Black Sea marine ecosystem to human pressures” (ANEMONE) contributed at filling knowledge gaps identified for the region. Thus, new data on chemical contamination (heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organochlorinated pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls) of marine organisms (mussels, veined rapa whelk, pelagic and demersal fish), collected in 2019 during specific pilot studies in the selected study areas (open sea, and coastal – in front of river mouths, hot-spots) from Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey were obtained. The HELCOM integrated hazardous substances assessment tool (CHASE) developed by NIVA Denmark was tested in the Black Sea with contaminants in biota data set and the overall scores evinced sub-regional differences in the status results, with worse status predominating in the north-western part of the Black Sea (rivers influenced coastal areas and hotspots) and better status in the open sea area and in the southern part of the Black Sea. Across the investigated biota samples, the CHASE test assessment showed a range of status results from bad to high, almost half (46%) of biota samples being „unaffected by hazardous substances” state (good and high status), whereas the remaining 54 % of biota samples are „affected by hazardous substances” state (bad, poor and moderate). Key-Words: Black Sea, biota, heavy metals, organic pollutants, CHASE. "