Contaminants of emerging concern: An integrated approach for assessing impacts on the marine environment

Project Information

CONTRAST

Grant agreement ID: 101135037

DOI

10.3030/101135037

EC signature date 10 November 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Total cost

€ 5 249 178,75

EU contribution

€ 5 249 178,75

Coordinated by

NORSK INSTITUTT FOR VANNFORSKNING STI
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CONTRAST (Contaminants of emerging concern: An integrated approach for assessing impacts on the marine environment)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The CONTRAST project will advance understanding of the properties, occurrence, fate, and effects of key chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) in the marine environment, and offer solutions for monitoring their impacts in coastal waters. CONTRAST will develop an integrated assessment and effect-based monitoring framework (IAF) to evaluate CEC impacts and support the assessment of Good Environmental Status (GES) under EU policies (Marine Strategy Framework Directive – MSFD, and Water Framework Directive – WFD).

The IAF will combine chemical measurements with biological effect endpoints, optimised to detect the presence and impact of CECs. CONTRAST will prioritise CECs that pose the greatest threat to marine life through chemical screening, guiding both environmental monitoring and laboratory experiments on biological systems and marine biodiversity. A combination of in silico, in vitro, and in vivo bioassays, along with omics technologies, will be used to identify key mechanisms of CEC toxicity. This will inform the selection of biological effect tools for the IAF to ensure broad coverage of toxicity pathways. CONTRAST will also develop and refine biomarkers to strengthen the IAF’s ability to detect diverse toxic effects. European-wide case studies will test the IAF’s effectiveness in measuring CEC impacts on indicator species and biodiversity. Insights from these studies will feed into guidance documents and policy briefs outlining best practices for implementing the IAF in marine environments.

Additionally, CONTRAST will examine how climate change drivers (e.g. temperature, pH) influence CEC distribution, circulation and fate using chemical models and altering bioavailability, and toxicity to sensitive marine organisms. Finally, the project will identify CECs reaching the deep sea and assess their potential impacts on deep-sea organisms.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The CONTRAST website was one of the first deliverables that was used to showcase the project, describing in simple language the ambitions of CONTRAST. The website provides the latest news and developments within the project. A dissemination, exploitation and communication plan (DECP) was produced to describe the internal communication, stakeholder engagement, clustering activities and general plan for all the other DECP activities within CONTRAST. An educational website ‘A New Formula’ was created to provide educational material and resources for the public, students and teachers on the risks of CECs. A dedicated CONTRAST LinkedIn account has become one of the main channels for the dissemination of CONTRAST news and activity.

Data management plan (DMP) was produced, defining the projects data and outlines the steps to ensure FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. The DMP provides guidelines for partners and a summary of anticipated data collection through field monitoring, lab experiments and modelling.

A chemical prioritisation scheme was developed to select the CECs that will be studied in the project. The CECs were filtered based on their persistence and bioaccumulation, toxicity and mobility. Overall, 64 CECs were selected for measurement in field samples analysed in case studies in WP5, 13 CECs were selected for lab experiments to understand mechanisms of toxicity (WP3), impacts on biodiversity (WP4) and modelling chemical fate (WP2).

The OSPAR/HELCOM study group, where several members of CONTRAST were a part of, provided recommendations on sentinel species and biological effects in fish and bivalves for the IAF in WP5. In silico, in vitro and in vivo experiments were performed to assess the general toxicity and the mechanisms of toxicity of the selected CECs to marine organisms. This information was also used to recommend the biomarkers that will be measured in fish and bivalves in the different case studies, to form the basis of IAF for the assessment of good environmental status (GES).

Modelling the fate and distribution of selected CECs with different chemical properties in both water and sediment of the Oslofjord. Biogeochemical models were combined to predict CECs partitioning with organic matter, decay due to biodegradation, photolysis, and hydrolysis. This allowed for simulations of spatial and temporal variability of CECs during a period of intensive pollution and restoration.
Establishment of biodiversity methods (i.e. eDNA, metabarcoding, proteomics) in marine water and sediment for measuring biodiversity in lab studies. These new methods are compared to visual id using both standard observations as well as automated imaging tools. Controlled laboratory experiments have been performed to determine the effects of CECs with sediment meiofauna and phyto- zoo-plankton communities, the analysis is on-going. The most promising tools will be applied to field investigations within the European case studies.

CONTRAST is collaborating with TREC (Traversing European coastlines) to determine the potential effect of chemicals (including 64 CECs from the priority list) on sediment biodiversity. Sediment hot spots have also been selected and forensic ecotoxicology will be performed to determine the compounds responsible for the effects.

The CECs and the biomarkers that will make up the IAF in fish and/or bivalves have been selected and will be applied to the first case studies, 16 and 12 biomarkers covering 9 and 6 mechanisms of toxicity will be measured in fish and bivalves, respectively. Proficiency tests between European laboratories were performed for two biomarkers. 13 and 10 labs took part in the 2 proficiency tests. The results showed satisfactory results with close agreement between the participating laboratories. Three method harmonisation workshops have been organised between the consortium partners including: 1) biological effects in fish and sediment biodiversity methods; 2) biological effects in mussels; and 3) chemical analysis. The harmonisation workshops were well attended and helped to further improve cooperation and collaboration.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

A key result within the first reporting period of CONTRAST is the development of the chemical prioritisation scheme that was used to select the most potential harmful CECs to marine organisms. The CECs priority list forms the first building blocks to the development of the IAF for measuring GES, which is the background to the policy brief that will be produced towards the end of the project.

Another innovative result is the elaboration of a module based on biogeochemical models to predict the fate of CECs in the marine environment. The fate of 6 CECs were simulated, and spatial and temporal variability was determined during a period of intensive pollution and restoration.

Illustrative overview of the CONTRAST project