Updating the Chronic Freshwater Ecotoxicity Database and Biotic Ligand Model for Nickel for Regulatory Applications in Europe.

Bioavailability has been taken into account in the regulation of nickel in freshwater ecosystems in Europe for over a decade and during that time a significant quantity of new information has become available covering both the sensitivity of aquatic organisms to nickel toxicity and bioavailability normalisation. The ecotoxicity database for chronic nickel toxicity to freshwater organisms has been updated and now includes 358 individual data points covering a total of 53 different species, all of which are suitable for bioavailability normalisation to different water chemistry conditions. The bioavailability normalisation procedure has also been updated to include updates to the bioavailability models that enable more sensitive water chemistry conditions to be covered by the model predictions. The updated database and bioavailability normalisation procedure are applicable to more than 95% of regulated European surface water conditions and has been used to calculate site specific criteria for a variety of different water chemistry scenarios to provide an indication of how the sensitivity to nickel varies between different water types. The HC5 values for this diverse election of water types range from 1.6 to 36 µg L -1 , clearly demonstrating the importance of accounting for nickel bioavailability in freshwaters. This updated database and bioavailability normalisation procedure provides a robust basis for the derivation of regulatory thresholds for chronic nickel toxicity in freshwaters such as Predicted No Effect Concentrations and Environmental Quality Standards and is protective of the results of several mesocosm studies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Environ Toxicol Chem 2023;00:0-0. © 2023 SETAC.