Ecotoxicological assessment of water quality and ecosystem health: a case study of the Volga river / Moiseenko T. I., Gashkina N. A., Sharova Yu. N., Kudryavtseva L. P. // Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. - 2008. - Т. 71, № 3. - С. 837-850.

T.I. Moiseenko et al. / Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 71 (2008) 837-850 849 concentration of hemoglobin in the blood and the development of anemia, accompanied by an increased percentage of neutrophils in the leukocyte count. In addition, a correlation between the concentration of Pb in fish kidneys ( P b k id h e y ) and pathological disturbances in this organ (Pat.kidney) was established: P a t . kid n e y s = 53.2 Pbkidneys + 17.2, r = 0.54, p<0.1. All this testifies to the fact that accumulation of metals (especially Hg and Cd) leads to pathological conditions in fish. Thus, the increase in the metal concentrations in the Volga River basin results in their accumulation in fishes, leading to the development of microelementoses and pathologic disturbances in fish organs and tissues. The established critical levels of water contamination remain open for discussion. The studies carried out by the authors have shown that the water quality and ecosystem health in all the investigated river sections are unsatisfactory, and that critical levels of water contamination are exceeded. Approximation of the dependencies into the area of low values of the water quality standard (less than 1unit) shows that the percentage of fish in which the second or third stage of disease was diagnosed was equal to about 10% (Fig. 7). The dose-effect dependencies clearly show that total pollution of the Volga River must be significantly decreased, by at least five to seven times, first for toxic contaminants. These studies have confirmed the high information value of the ecotoxicological approach to the assessment of water quality and ecosystem health. Note that ecotoxicological studies were carried out for the Volga River basin for the first time, and many important river sections or reservoir areas were not investigated. 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