The legislative control and prediction of hazardous effects in soils and sediments are mainly based on chemical data on the level of selected hazardous key pollutants. This approach has some limitations: inability to account for the bioavailability of the contaminants and foresee the interactive effects of pollutants in complex matrixes. Also there is always the risk of poor selection of the contaminants to be measured. However, additional biological end ecological tests enable to compose a more objective picture of the environmental hazard. Due to the complexity of ecosystems and multifunctional character of toxicity per se which can be chemical, species- and end-point dependent variable, the assessment of polluted wastewaters and soils is recommended to be performed by using several organisms of different trophic levels. However, the selection of a suitable test battery is not a trivial task. With the appearance of new generation of biotesting means, so-called microbiotests, the biological approach to assessing environmental pollution could become a powerful counterpart to the chemical one. Currently ecotoxicological testing (fish, daphnia and algal tests) is introduced in the EC legislation only for the analysis of new chemicals (EC Directive 67/548, 7th amendment 92/32).
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