Abstract
Despite the positive aspects of the intensive development of aviation, airports are considered large-scale polluters. Pollution caused by runoff water (stormwater) is one of the major problems related to airport operations. The aim of this study was to characterize the potential toxic impact on aquatic life from runoff water discharges from four international airports in Europe. Samples of stormwater were collected at airports with different capacities of passenger movement in four seasons of the year from 2011 to 2013. Within the ecotoxicological analyses, a battery of biotests incorporating organisms of different trophic levels (Microtox® test, Thamnotoxkit F™) were used. A relatively high number of runoff water samples collected at the investigated airports in Europe was recorded as having very high acute hazard (16.8%), acute hazard (27.7%), and slight acute hazard (18.1%) levels. The results of the research indicate that winter and autumn present a greater toxic threat than the rest of the year. The highest number of toxic samples was observed for samples collected in the de-icing area, the runway and the vicinity of airport terminals. The ecotoxicological assessment applied in this research can be used as a tool for assessing the environmental effect of airports.
Highlights
Despite the many positive aspects resulting from the extensive development of commercial aviation, airports are a major source of environmental pollution [4,5,6,7,8]
A list of chosen airport runoff water sampling sites was created by the authors of this paper using the available protocols of airport industrial waste management, the authors’ prior experience, and by consulting a group of experts consisting of airport transport and engineers working at relevant airports [7,16,31,43,44]
Acute toxicity tests were performed on 121 samples collected from the abovementioned airports at various characteristic places (1–8)
Summary
Despite the many positive aspects resulting from the extensive development of commercial aviation, airports are a major source of environmental pollution [4,5,6,7,8]. In this regard, a crucial aspect is the contamination caused by airport stormwaters (runoff waters). Airport runoff waters are formed when precipitation or atmospheric deposition washes chemicals used during everyday activities at airports off the airport platform Such waters enter the soil, surface water, and even groundwater, which can act as a source of drinking water [9,10,11,12,13,14]. This can cause substantial difficulties, especially if the receiving existing wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is malfunctioning or there is no WWTP at the airport [15,16]
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