Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
15.4.7 Ways Forward
Listed below are the recommended ways forward to implement biomarker-based monitor-
ing in Asia:
1. Educate the general public, government officials, and policy makers in under-
standing the usefulness and importance of supplementing chemical-based moni-
toring data with effects-based biomonitoring data for environmental monitoring.
2. Government funding is needed to support research programs led by universities
and relevant research institutes/centers on the development and validation of bio-
markers for water quality assessment.
3. Local fauna/flora (sentinel species) relevant to subtropical/tropical environment
should be identified, selected, and inventoried (database).
4. Overseas protocols for biomonitoring should be optimized for local sentinel spe-
cies; tolerance values for invertebrates/vertebrate species of different ecoregions
should be determined.
5. Standardization and calibration of selected biomarkers specific for each country's
freshwater/marine ecosystems.
6. Training for personnel must be provided to overcome the shortage of skilled tech-
nicians in government agencies.
7. Provision of equipment/literature resources/protocols with other Asian countries.
8. Establishment of collaborative regional biomarker-based programs for technology
transfer and capacity building.
15.5 Conclusions
Although our coverage here of regulatory bodies and their procedures has necessarily
been patchy, it can be concluded that the use of biomarkers is starting to appear with
some prominence in environmental assessment programs across the world. Furthermore,
the use of biomarkers in such programs is being increasingly recommended by official
bodies, or at least by quasi-official organizations taking national or international respon-
sibility for the acquisition of biologically relevant data to supplement (or occasionally
offer an alternative to) chemical data. Thus, the OSPAR Commission of Western Europe
has increasingly over time endorsed the utilization of biomarkers by the Contracting
Parties to the OSPAR Convention in environmental assessments of the quality of NW
European coastal waters.
The presence of tumors and the like in fish, both marine and freshwater, was among
the earliest biological effects of contaminants noted with records now from all three con-
tinents addressed here. Ease of observation was clearly an early driving factor. In time,
recommended biomarkers have been extended essentially to the lower levels of biological
organization in a range of animals including invertebrates, not least because biological
effects at these lowest molecular, biochemical, and cytological levels are considered the
most sensitive and therefore the most appropriate candidates to be part of any early warn-
ing system. These and further biomarkers can now be labeled as indicative, for example, of
oxidative stress, genotoxicity, and endocrine disruption, as our knowledge of the biology
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