SECTION 5 

 PHYSIOLOGICAL-BIOCHEMICAL ASPECTS OF WATER TOXICOLOGY 



V.I. Lukyanenko' 



The most important biological and economic problem for an industrialized 

 society today is the problem of "clean water". This problem stems from the 

 increasing rate of water consumption and the rising pollution of inland 

 water bodies by wastewaters, oil and oil products, and pesticides. Cur- 

 rently the volume of polluted wastewater discharged into our water bodies is 

 approaching 700 cubic kilometers. There are thousands of substances in this 

 wastewater which are toxic to organisms in some way or another. During the 

 last decade, the problem of preventing pollution in inland water bodies be- 

 came still more complicated due to the wide-spread use of agricultural 

 chemicals for pest control and plant protection. The list of pesticides 

 used in agriculture grows continuously larger. World production of these 

 toxicants in now approaching 1.5 million tons/year. 



During the twenties and thirties of this century, a general concept of 

 protecting a water body from pollution was formulated both in our country 

 and abroad, so as to restrain the progressing chemical pollution of water 

 bodies and guarantees the multiple use of water resources. In accordance 

 with this concept, state regulation of wastewater discharge and control of 

 pollution by establishing maximum permissible concentrations (MPC) of harm- 

 ful substances discharged into water bodies was introduced. For quite 

 understandable reasons, the dominant role in solving the problem of pro- 

 tecting water bodies from pollution and establishing the MPC in water 

 bodies in our country belonged to the field of health specialists. 



Medical specialists have done a considerable amount of work on this pro- 

 blem. They have developed ideas on hygienic criteria for the harmful 

 effects of wastewater; strengthened the physiological-biochemical direction 

 in studies of water hygiene and sanitary protection of water bodies, and at 

 present have experimentally proven the MPC of about 300 harmful substances 

 introduced into water bodies that exclude unfavorable effects of these sub- 

 stances on people's health (Cerkinskiy, 1949; Cherkinskiy, Krasowskiy, 

 1967). However, after a short period of time, it was learned that the MPC 

 of many substances (salts of heavy metals, insecticides) which fully satisfy 

 the health specialists do not guarantee the purity of water bodies from a 

 general biological standpoint or from the fishing industry's point of view. 



^sNIORH, Astrakhan, USSR. 



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