environmental toxicology

environmental toxicology, field of study in the environmental sciences that is concerned with the assessment of toxic substances in the environment. Although it is based on toxicology, environmental toxicology draws heavily on principles and techniques from other fields, including biochemistry, cell biology, developmental biology, and genetics. Among its primary interests are the assessment of toxic substances in the environment, the monitoring of environments for the presence of toxic substances, the effects of toxins on biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems, and the metabolism and biological and environmental fate of toxins.

Historical development

Environmental toxicology is a relatively young field, with its origins in the mid-20th century. The modern science of toxicology, on the other hand, was born in the early 19th century, and by the later decades of that century, some scientists had begun to consider the effects of toxic substances that had been released into the environment. But awareness of environmental pollutants did not increase markedly until the publication of American biologist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. Despite strong opposition from the chemical industry, which felt that Carson’s work unfairly attacked their products, Carson highlighted the environmental side effects from the use of pesticides such as DDT. The book suggested that pollutants used in one area could quickly affect neighbouring areas and that the destruction of a particular part of the food chain upsets the balance of nature, leading to the destruction of an ecosystem. In 1969 scientist René Truhart coined the term ecotoxicology to describe the study of the toxic effects of pollutants on the biological components of ecosystems. Although narrower in scope, ecotoxicology played an important role in the development of environmental toxicology.

In the 1970s scientists concerned with toxins in the environment increasingly focused their research on the impacts of agents of biological warfare (e.g., Agent Orange), on industrial pollution, and on discharge from mines. In the next decade the relevance of environmental toxicology to modern society was realized with the Bhopal disaster, in which 45 tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas escaped from an insecticide plant, and the Chernobyl accident, in which massive amounts of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere following the explosion of a nuclear reactor. The Bhopal disaster killed between 15,000 and 20,000 people, with many thousands more suffering from acute and chronic conditions. The Chernobyl accident ultimately was responsible for an estimated several thousand deaths from radiation sickness and cancer and the contamination of millions of acres of land across Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the field of environmental toxicology expanded. Among its major concerns were oil spills, the dumping of medical and nuclear waste, air and water pollution, and the impact of substances such as synthetic hormones that were regularly released into environmental reservoirs.

Assessment and monitoring of toxic substances

Toxins affect the environment and organisms in a variety of ways, from having little negative impact on certain abiotic factors or resistant organisms to killing animals and destroying major components of ecosystems. The extent of damage depends on the type and structure of the toxic substance; the age, the size, and the species of the organism; and the temperature and the physical and chemical characteristics of the environment (whether terrestrial or aquatic). Knowledge of how these factors interact is critical to understanding how best to prevent or reduce exposure or remove a toxin from the environment (environmental remediation).

The assessment of toxicity at the levels of whole organism, cell, and gene is one way by which researchers are able to determine how much of a toxin an organism can be exposed to before adverse effects set in. Different assays are used for toxicity assessment, including acute and subacute toxicity assays, sediment toxicity assays, and genotoxicity assays. The determination of safe exposure levels in animals plays a key role in the development of regulations that dictate how toxic substances are to be handled and disposed of. There are also methods by which scientists are able to estimate the quantity of a given toxic substance in the environment.

The identification of ways to monitor for chemicals in the environment is an important aspect of environmental toxicology. Monitoring typically is based on the detection of sensitive biochemical markers (e.g., proteins), the levels of which change in the presence of a given toxin, or on changes in individual “indicator” species, the well-being of which serves as a measure of environmental conditions and the health of other species.