Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2013C00288:reg:2:p3
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2013C00288
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2 (pt 3/15)
Character Range: 1257502–1260653

public open space, commercial, industrial, agricultural, national parks/areas with high ecological value), with the exception of agriculture (see paragraph below on agricultural land), the following ecological receptors are relevant:
    * biota supporting ecological processes, including microorganisms and soil invertebrates
    * native flora and fauna
    * introduced flora and fauna
    * wildlife, i.e. secondary poisoning in birds and small rodents.

Henceforth, the above list of protected organisms will be referred to as 'species and soil microbial processes'.

The level of protection provided varies depending on the land use and whether the contaminant in question biomagnifies. Different levels of protection are aimed at protecting certain percentages of species and soil microbial processes[2]. The percentages of species to be protected will apply to the land uses irrespective of the purpose of the SQG. If a protection level is set at 80%, then theoretically 20% of the species and soil processes are at risk of experiencing adverse effects.

The toxic effects that this 20% of species/soil processes may experience will vary depending on the type of toxicity data that was used to derive the SQG. For example, for SQGs derived using NOEC (no observed effect concentration) or EC10 data, the potentially affected 20% of species/soil processes would experience toxic effects that were not significantly different to the controls or up to a 10% effect respectively. For SQGs based on EC50 data, the potentially affected 20% of species/processes could experience a 50% effect.

Biomagnification and the corresponding levels of protection should be enacted only when:
    * the contaminant meets the criteria for biomagnification
    * the surface area of the contaminated land exceeds a certain minimum surface area. The minimum surface area for urban residential/public open space is 250 m2 and the minimum surface area for commercial, industrial and agricultural land is 1,000 m2.

A summary of the percentages of species and soil microbial processes to be protected in soil with different land uses is given in Table 1 below.
Table 1. Percentage of species and soil processes to be protected for different land uses
Land use                          Standard % protection  Biomagnificationa % protection
Urban residential                 80                     85b
Public open space                 80                     85b
Commercial                        60                     65c
Industrial                        60                     65c
Agricultural                      95d and 80e            98c,d and 85c,e
Areas of ecological significance  99                     99

a if a contaminant meets the criteria for biomagnification, b if surface area exceeds 250 m2, c if surface area exceeds 1,000 m2, d agricultural crops, e for soil processes and terrestrial fauna.
The level of protection for some of the land uses are the same. Therefore, some of the land uses have been combined. Thus, in essence, there are only four different land uses: 1) national park/area with high ecological value, 2) urban residential/public