Contaminants of emerging concern: An integrated approach for assessing impacts on the marine environment

CONTRAST will develop an integrated assessment and effect-based monitoring framework (IAF) to measure the impacts of CECs on the marine environment to provide a measure of Good Environmental Status for application in EU policy (i.e. MSFD/WFD). The IAF will involve chemical measurements together with biological effects endpoints that will be optimised to detect the presence and degree of effect of CECs in the marine environment. CONTRAST will identify the CECs that pose the greatest threat to marine life by using chemical prioritisation schemes to inform which of the CECs should be measured in the environment. Additionally, which CECs should be used in the laboratory-controlled experiments, where the effects on biological systems and marine biodiversity will be performed. A combination of in silico, in vitro and in vivo bioassays together with omics will be used to determine the principal mechanisms of toxicity of CECs selected from the chemical prioritisation schemes. This will provide important information on how CECs may interact with marine organisms at environmentally relevant concentrations and inform which biological effects tools should be used in the IAF to cover the range of toxicity mechanisms that CECs produce. CONTRAST will address this by optimising existing and developing new biomarkers, so that the IAF includes biomarker tools to cover many of the mechanism of toxicity produced by CECs. A series of European wide case studies will be used to test the suitability of the IAF to measure the effects of chemicals including CECs on indicator species and biodiversity. The knowledge gained from field testing and laboratory studies will form the basis for guidance documents and policy briefs on the best practices for performing an IAF on CECs in the marine environment. Furthermore, the interactions of climate change drivers on CECs will be evaluated including effects on CECs distribution, circulation, fate, bioavailability, and toxicity to marine life.