Do water quality criteria based on nonnative species provide appropriate protection for native species?

The potential use of toxicity data for nonnative species to derive water quality criteria is controversial because it is sometimes questioned whether criteria based on species from one geographical region provide appropriate protection for species in a different region. However, this is an important concept for the development of Chinese water quality criteria or standards. Data were assembled on 38 chemicals for which values were available for both native and nonnative species. Sensitivities of these organisms were compared based on the 5% hazardous concentration values and the species sensitivity distribution from a literature review. Results of the present study's analysis showed that there is approximately 74% certainty that use of nonnative species to generate water quality criteria would be sufficiently protective of aquatic ecosystems in China. Without applying any assessment factor to the water quality criteria generated from nonnative species, the uncertainty would be 26% when the native Chinese species might be under protection. Applying an assessment factor of 10 would offer adequate protection to native Chinese species for approximately 90% of tested chemicals and thus reduce the uncertainty from 26% to 10%.