Freshwater Toxicity Tests and Experimental Environment Procedures

Contamination of aquatic ecosystems, including freshwaters, with varied and new polluting agents is a constant threat and a primary concern worldwide. Due to domestic, industrial or agricultural activities, a multitude of chemical pollutants can be found in freshwater, such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products, nanomaterials, plasticizers, endocrine disruptors, flame retardants, pesticides, persistent organic pollutants, etc. They affect aquatic fauna and flora with the most serious harmful consequences for food chains. Having a key role in ecosystems, plants from different taxonomic groups (algae, bryophytes, pteridophytes, flowering plants) are important test organisms for evaluating water quality and for its decontamination. Invertebrates, fish and amphibians through the distinct sensitivity of various life stages, the available and abundance, and the wide range of biomarkers that can be addressed in freshwater toxicity assessment have allowed for the design and standardization of a wide range of tests presented in this chapter, with an emphasis on the tests developed by the OECD and the US EPA. A brief reference is assigned to ecotoxicological modeling, cytotoxicity and genotoxicity assays. Despite the consistent number of toxicity tests intended to evaluate specific adverse outcomes, the conditions that must be met so that the results are reliable and ensure the extrapolation of the data are of great interest for tackling the major threats to freshwater ecosystems.