September 25, 2026 by Adam Peters
Adam participated in a workshop on “Incorporating Metal Bioavailability into Water Quality Criteria in the Asia-Pacific Region” organised jointly by the Metals Environmental Research Associations (MERA) and La Trobe University, and held at the 2026 SETAC Asia Pacific meeting in Tsukuba, Japan. The workshop covered why metal bioavailability is important, technical aspects of how it can be addressed, how it is implemented in Europe, the USA, and Australia, as well as the current situation regarding regulatory aspects relating to metal bioavailability in China, Japan, and South East Asia. There was also plenty of discussion about the experiences of applying bioavailability based approaches in those regions where it is already included in regulation, and what might be required for its implementation in the various parts of Asia.
Adam gave an introductory talk which covered the reasons why taking account of metal bioavailability is important, which addressed the variation in sensitivity of different locations within a geographic region to metals and highlighted the advantages of ensuring that all locations can be adequately protected without requiring a high level of over-protection in insensitive areas. The following presentations highlighted the different approaches that can be taken to addressing metal bioavailability, including the limitations of approaches that are based only on water hardness, and whether the different regions use mandatory standards, or voluntary guidelines. The presentations also covered the different types of models that are used, such as semi-mechanistic biotic ligand models or empirical multiple linear regression models.