13th International Conference on Protection and Restoration of the Environment, Mykonos Island, Greece, 2016
Polluted soils also are a potential threat to ecosystems and to human health. This threat is gene... more Polluted soils also are a potential threat to ecosystems and to human health. This threat is generally approached by chemical characterization based on quantification of the total content of pollutants present in the contaminated matrices. However, it provides limited information particularly on pollutant bioavailability. So, an ecotoxicological approach is essential to evaluate the danger associated with polluted soils in complement of chemical analysis. It is within this framework that this project took place, aiming at coupling physico-chemical characterization to biological response, in order to approach the potential threat of contaminated soils on ecosystems. The study was carried out on two soils sampled from two different industrial sites. Soil 2 underwent a biological treatment for 18 months, whereas soil 1 remained untreated. Both soils were heavily polluted, with similar PAHs concentrations (about 3 g.kg-1 of dried soil). The two soils studied gave different ecotox-scores when subjected to a battery of bioassays including solid- and liquid-bioassays. The total PAH content of the soil is not a pertinent parameter to assess soil pollution hazards contrary to the distribution of PAHs. The distribution of PAH fractions directly accessible to organisms in water extracts is a better indicator. Nevertheless, it is necessary to complement the chemical analysis of PAHs by ecotoxicity bioassays which proved to be more sensitive indicators of soil quality. Ecotox-scores calculated from a battery of specifically selected bioassays appear to be a cost-effective and robust method to classify soils according to their toxicity level.
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