Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2013C00288:reg:20:p1
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2013C00288
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 20 (pt 1/4)
Character Range: 1642606–1645820

20                                 PNR                               log EC50                            1.06 log CECe + 1.41                            Oorts et al. 2006a
                                                                                                         (r2 = 0.66)

a = normalisation relationships were also developed for the same combination of species and endpoint but for different measures of toxicity e.g. log EC50 and NOEC and using other soil physicochemical properties.
b = these CEC measurements were made using the ammonium acetate method (Rayment & Higginson 1992).
c = pH measured in 0.01 M calcium chloride (Rayment & Higginson 1992).
d = no statistically significant normalisation relationships could be derived for EC10 and EC10 SIR data (NBRP unpublished data).
e = these CEC measurements were made using the silver thiourea method (Chhabra et al. 1975).
f = the full normalisation relationship was not provided in EC (2008a) but as only the slope of the relationship is used in the normalising, the constant is not necessary. CEC = cation exchange capacity (cmolc/kg); OC = organic carbon content (%); MRM = maize residue mineralisation; PNR = potential nitrification rate; SIN = substrate induced nitrification, SIR = substrate induced respiration.

7.5              Sensitivity of organisms to copper
The distribution of the sensitivity of species and microbial processes to Cu is presented in Figure 7. Toxicity data for plants, soil processes and soil invertebrates was generally evenly spread in the species sensitivity distribution (SSD); however, the invertebrates did not have the same range of highly tolerant species as the other two organism groups. Nonetheless, the overall distribution of sensitivity to Cu was similar. Therefore, all the toxicity data was used to derive the ACLs and SQGs.

Figure 7. The species sensitivity distribution (plotted as a cumulative frequency against added copper (Cu) concentration) of soil processes, soil invertebrates and plant species to Cu.

7.6              Calculation of soil quality guidelines for fresh copper contamination
As described earlier, SQGs were derived using three sets of toxicity data—NOEC and EC10, LOEC and EC30, and EC50 data.

7.6.1         Calculation of soil quality guidelines for fresh copper contamination based on no observed effect concentration and 10% effect concentration toxicity data

7.6.1.1         Calculation of soil-specific added contaminant limits
The NOEC and EC10 toxicity data was normalised as outlined in Heemsbergen et al. (2008). Geometric means for each toxic end point (for example, mortality, reproduction, seedling emergence) for each species were calculated and the lowest geometric mean selected to represent the sensitivity of each species/microbial process. These lowest geometric means were entered into the BurrliOZ software (Campbell et al. 2000) and ACL(NOEC & EC10) values calculated that should theoretically protect 99, 80 and 60% of species/microbial processes. The resulting ACL(NOEC and EC10) values are only applicable to the Australian reference soil (Table 6). In order to generate soil-specific ACLs the normalisation relationships were applied to the