Development of a decision support system to manage contamination in marine ecosystems A. Dagnino ⁎, A. Viarengo DiSIT, Università del Piemonte orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”, Viale Teresa Michel 11, 15121, Alessandria, Italy HIGHLIGHTS • An innovative DSS for managing pollution in marine coastal ecosystems is developed. • Pollutant levels (single compound & mixtures) are compared to effect-based thresholds. • Triad data are used to assess the risk of biodiversity loss. • Sublethal biomarkers indicate the level of biological stress. • Chemical & ecotoxicological data are used to determine risk related to sediments. abstract article info Article history: Received 27 March 2013 Received in revised form 19 June 2013 Accepted 20 June 2013 Available online xxxx Editor: Mark Hanson Keywords: Decision support system Environmental risk assessment Marine coastal ecosystem Pollution In recent years, contamination and its interaction with climate-change variables have been recognized as critical stressors in coastal areas, emphasizing the need for a standardized framework encompassing chemi- cal and biological data into risk indices to support decision-making. We therefore developed an innovative, expert decision support system (Exp-DSS) for the management of contamination in marine coastal ecosys- tems. The Exp-DSS has two main applications: (i) to determine environmental risk and biological vulnerabil- ity in contaminated sites; and (ii) to support the management of waters and sediments by assessing the risk due to the exposure of biota to these matrices. The Exp-DSS evaluates chemical data, both as single com- pounds and as total toxic pressure of the mixture, to compare concentrations to effect-based thresholds (TELs and PELs). Sites are then placed into three categories of contamination: uncontaminated, mildly con- taminated, and highly contaminated. In highly contaminated sites, effects on high-level ecotoxicological end- points (i.e. survival and reproduction) are used to determine risk at the organism-population level, while ecological parameters (i.e. alterations in community structure and ecosystem functions) are considered for assessing effects on biodiversity. Changes in sublethal biomarkers are utilized to assess the stress level of the organisms in mildly contaminated sites. In Triad studies, chemical concentrations, ecotoxicological high-level effects, and ecological data are combined to determine the level of environmental risk in highly contaminated sites; chemical concentration and ecotoxicological sublethal effects are evaluated to determine biological vulnerability in mildly contaminated sites. The Exp-DSS was applied to data from the literature about sediment quality in estuarine areas of Spain, and ranked risks related to exposure to contaminated sediments from high risk (Huelva estuary) to mild risk (Guadalquivir estuary and Bay of Cadiz). A spreadsheet-based ver- sion of the Exp-DSS is available at the MEECE and DiSIT web sites (www.meece.eu and www.disit.unipmn.it). © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Marine coastal environments face the presence of and exposure to many pollutants originating from terrestrial, atmospheric, and marine systems (Islam and Tanaka, 2004). Therefore, sound monitoring activi- ties are essential to guarantee correct environmental management in line with recent environmental policy strategies on water quality as- sessment and control at the international level (Foden et al., 2008). Conventional techniques for environmental pollution monitoring in marine ecosystems are mainly based on the determination of contami- nants in water and sediment samples, but ecotoxicological testing to assess the biological effects of pollutants is rarely associated with chem- ical analyses (Allan et al., 2006). In fact, regulatory requirements on the risk assessment of chemicals are largely based on the quantification of individual substances (Connon et al., 2012) although, in the last decades, strategies aimed to integrate chemical and biological data in monitoring programs have been developed (Van der Oost et al., 2003; Viarengo et al., 2007). Recently, the scientific knowledge gained in pilot-studies realized by different international organizations Science of the Total Environment 466–467 (2014) 119–126 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 0131 360384; fax: +39 0131 360390. E-mail addresses: dagnino@unipmn.it, aledagnino@virgilio.it (A. Dagnino). 0048-9697/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.06.084 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv