ORIGINAL ARTICLE Assessment of compost dosage in farmland through ecotoxicological tests Alberto Pivato • Roberto Raga • Maria Cristina Lavagnolo • Stefano Vanin • Alberto Barausse • Luca Palmeri • Raffaello Cossu Received: 16 July 2014 / Accepted: 13 November 2014 Ó Springer Japan 2014 Abstract A research project was carried out to evaluate ecotoxicological effects of mature compost addition to agricultural soil, using a battery of ecotoxicological tests. The following species were selected: plant of Lepidium sativum, earthworm Eisenia foetida, aquatic crustacean Daphnia magna and bacteria Vibrio fischeri. The tests were classified as ‘‘direct tests’’ using solid compost samples and ‘‘indirect tests’’ using compost leaching test eluate. The direct bioassays were performed using compost added to artificial soil in concentrations ranging from 2.5 to 100 % (w/w); the indirect ones considered compost eluate, added to a standard solution in the same concentrations used in the direct tests. Both tests aimed at obtaining the ecotoxi- cological parameters (LC 50 and EC 50 ). These values were then utilized to implement the Species Sensitivity Distri- bution (SSD) analysis and extrapolate the Hazard Con- centration (HC), a useful threshold to preserve the biodiversity of agricultural ecosystems. Results indicated an increase in compost toxicity with greater compost concentrations; in particular, for direct tests compost dos- age below 10 % showed low toxicity, while for indirect ones the toxicity was higher. Furthermore, SSD analysis showed a Hazardous Concentration (HC 5 ) for direct bio- assays of 3.5 % and for indirect of 14 %. Keywords Compost application Á Ecotoxicity tests Á Species sensitivity distribution Introduction The use of compost as a source of organic matter and nutrients is a common practice to improve physicochemical properties of a soil, meanwhile reducing the need for inor- ganic fertilizers and so doing reducing the production costs. Compost affects soil porosity, texture, water holding capacity, and increases the availability of nutritive elements. There are potential negative effects of compost application on cropland, primarily the potential release and transfer of toxic heavy metals and other organic pollutants from the soil into the food web. Nowadays, compost spreading in agri- culture is regulated to prevent the contamination of the environment, through quality requirements among others, in the working document of the European Commission on Biological Treatment of Biowaste [1]. The limits required by law for the use of compost as a fertilizer are mainly physicochemical and biochemical. On the other hand, the European REACH regulation [2] imposes a requirement for an ecotoxicology analysis for all the trophic levels for those substances spread in the eco- system such as insecticides and herbicides. Many authors have investigated compost ecotoxicolog- ical aspects [3, 4], but previous studies have mainly been focused on the use of plants and microorganisms as bio- logical indicators [5–10], while only few studies deal with soil invertebrates and aquatic organisms [6, 8, 11, 12]. Domene et al. [12] evaluated the variation in the phys- icochemical properties and pollutant burden of sludge during its composting, and the sensitivity of soil inverte- brate bioassays as indicators of composting quality in A. Pivato (&) Á R. Raga Á M. C. Lavagnolo Á A. Barausse Á L. Palmeri Á R. Cossu DII, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, via Marzolo n 9, 35131 Padua, Italy e-mail: alberto.pivato@unipd.it S. Vanin Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences, School of Applied Science, University of Huddersfield Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK 123 J Mater Cycles Waste Manag DOI 10.1007/s10163-014-0333-z