Deriving aquatic water quality criteria for inorganic mercury in China by species sensitivity distributions
应用物种敏感度分布法研究中国无机汞的水生生物水质基准

According to the characteristics of aquatic biota composition in China,a total of 90 acute toxicity data of aquatic organism were screened including plants,invertebrates,and vertebrates.The sensitivity of various organisms was discussed using the approach of species sensitivity distribution,and then the aquatic water quality criteria of inorganic mercury in China were derived.Those results showed that crustacean was the most sensitive organism for inorganic mercury,and the log-Slogistic3 model provided the best fit for various sets of data.The acute water quality criteria and chronic water quality criteria for inorganic mercury were 1.743 and 0.467 μg · L-1,respectively,which were comparable to that of other countries.However,detail analysis indicated that there were slightly differences among water quality criteria in different countries due to the variability in species composition of different regions.Therefore,the aquatic water quality criteria of inorganic mercury might be used as a candidate guideline to protect aquatic organisms of surface water ecosystems in China against toxic effects of inorganic mercury owing to the high concentration in a short-term exposure and the low concentration in a long-term exposure.Compared with mercury concentration of natural surface water in Southwest China,active inorganic mercury in surface water might be little potential adverse effects to aquatic organisms except for Jialing River.