biological responses such growth and reproduction which may have a relevancy on ecological levels. As consequence, the use of the three different selected
biomarkers either in laboratory or field scales may open an opportunity to show how toxicants interfere to biological integrity from biochemical, cellular to
behavioral levels that may envisage consequences on ecological levels. Determination of ecological status of such zones which involve biomarkers from
different levels of biological integrity as rational basis along with the chemical analysis approach will be meaningful efforts for supporting environment
managers and governments in protecting, remediating and managing the environment concerning the anthropogenic activities and the deleterious impacts
of wastages.
1.2. Logical Framework
Pesticides are chemical compounds that have broad-spectrum applications in anthropogenic activities. They are used from domestic, agricultural, sport,
public health to industrial sectors Sobiech and Henry 2003. In a developing country like Indonesia the production of these chemical compounds may increase
along with increasing of economic activities since the capability of the pesticides to prevent, control, eradicate and destroy any pest animal in pre and post harvest
of agricultural products, in industrial sectors and to kill disease-causing organism in public health. Table 1 shows elevation of pesticide productions in Indonesia
from 1999-2004. The data may reflect not only elevation of pesticides supply, but also increase of the potential use of pesticide in anthropogenic activities in
Indonesia. Table 2 shows the use of pesticides in aquaculture campaigns from 2001-2006 in Indonesia.
Table 1. Pesticides production in Indonesia. Source of raw data: Statistics of large and medium industry, BPS 1999-2004.
Year Pesticide production
Kilogram Litter
2001 1,542,455 3,919,144
2002 11,981,352 4,850,205
2003 12,208,281 10,292,928
2004 13,889,837 12,139,769
Table 2. Usage of pesticides in brackishwater and freshwater ponds 2001-2006 DKP 2006.
Year Pesticides used in Aquacultures Kg
Brackishwater pond Freshwater pond
Total 2001 749,539
150,688 900,227
2002 30,542,938 1,421,447 31,964,385
2003 371,171 105,986
477,157 2004 855,307
109,216 964,523
2005 1,237,743 150,951
1,388,694 2006 370,023
677,411 1,047,434 The use of pesticides not only increases quality and quantity of food
productions and other products that give benefit to humankind, but also escalates pesticide waste and pesticide-adverse effects on the environment. It is due to the
fact that only small portion of pesticides less than 5 can reach targeted organisms during the application, while the remaining are wasted, and
contaminate the environment and its compartment Porte and Albaiges 2002. In addition, many non-agrochemicals such as cleaning products, antibacterial soaps,
lawn, garden, and swimming pools chemicals are pesticides that are washed down the drain and can become part of the waste stream which reach surface waters
directly via surface runoff Sobiech and Henry 2003. Therefore, to improve health and nutrition in developing countries Black et al. 2003 suggested using
more effective pesticides such as OP pesticides and emphasizing the urgent need for adequate risk assessment of the deleterious effects of the pesticides to the
environment and its compartments. Environmental quality assessment which were based merely on a chemical
based analysis is considered to be an insufficient approach to delineate deleterious effects of environmental stressors on biological integrity of organisms or
population. It is because the chemical based analysis can only describe the level of discharged xenobiotic compounds in the environment without illustrating the
effects of the xenobiotic compounds in living organisms. In addition, the chemical monitoring can detect the chemical compounds when they are persistent.
It cannot detect the degradable chemical compounds such as organophosphate
pesticides which have short biological half-lives, even though, they have long- term effects in biological system of living organism Peakall and Walker 1994.
Moreover, the chemical-based approach is extremely expensive particularly for developing countries, applicable to only a small proportion of the pollutants in the
environment, provides a little biologically meaningful information, and therefore fail to notice the complexity of the studied ecosystems Butterworth 1995. As a
consequence, the chemical based analysis solely cannot answer the most critical aspect of assessment for society which is to determine how much deleterious
impact of contaminants to the environment that can be prepared to tolerate and handle Peakall and Walker 1994; Sheery 2003.
Concerning the degradable pesticides such as organophosphate pesticides, the problem of assessing deleterious environmental impacts of the pesticides
which were based on chemical analysis approach is complicated by rapid degradation and bitransformation of the pesticides in aquatic environments or
living organisms Walker et al. 2001. Once the pesticides get into living organisms they will be transformed and metabolized to be metabolite compounds
which differ from their parent compounds that may increase or decrease their toxicities. These complications bring about the interpretations of potential affects
of the pesticides in aquatic environments and living organisms even more ambiguous Sobiech and Henry 2003.
To evaluate the quality of environments, the level of contaminant resulting from the chemical based monitoring are referred to the envinronmental quality
criteria which is generated from laboratory test based mostly on mortality endpoint. Although the mortality-based acute test is popular in ecotoxiclogical
assessments, the test still generates some problems such as recognizing long-term deleterious effects of chemical compounds concentrations which does not cause
the death of tested organisms Connell et al 1994. The test only illustrates the concentration of contaminants to bring about mortality at duration of experiments.
Hence, based on the mortality test the contaminants that get into the tissue of tested organisms slowly will be justified as low toxicity contaminants since the
short duration of the test does not allow the contaminants reaching the toxicity level to kill the tested organisms Landis and Yu 1999. Moreover, the test only
delineates the magnitude of the tested doses which cause the death of organisms. In fact, the tested organisms undergo biological destructive damages from
molecular to behavioral levels induced by contaminants before they are dead. It means that the pre-mortality destructive damages induced by contaminants may
reduce the Darwinian fitness such as metabolism process, fecundity, reproduction, and growth rate Depledge 1993 which may be manifested in population and
ecosystem levels cannot be detected by the mortality approach. Therefore, the mortality-based acute test is considered as an insufficient tool to detect and
illustrate risks that will occur in the environment due to the environmental stressors in early state.
Figure 1. The role of biomarkers in ecological risk assessment ERA Modified
from Hansen 2007. Pesticides
Ecosystem
Risk assessment regulation
Monitoring early recognition
Selected Biomarkers
Exposure scenarios
Risk management Hazard
characterization
Risk characterization
Hot spot biomonitoring
Laboratory scale exposure
Ecological Risk Assessment ERA
Environmental managers
The biomarker concept is considered as a breakthrough concept to complete the conventional approach for evaluating the environmental quality.
The concept offers opportunities to picturize holistic interactions between pollutants and pollutant-induced biological damages of sentinel organisms from
molecular, cellular to behavioral levels. It is acknowledged that a healthy organism exposed to increasing pollutant loads will suffer a continuum
deterioration in health which shows reversible to irreversible conditions that culminate on the death of organisms Depledge and Fossi 1994. Biomarkers
have capability to recognize in which point of the continuum pollutant-exposed organisms are located so that they offer potentially an early warning system for
environmental deterioration induced by pollutants Depledge and Fossi 1994. Last but not least, biomarkers can also detect prevented adverse effecs of
xenobiotic compounds on living organisms Wu et al. 2005. Therefore, biomarkers can be used conceptually as valuable tools in detecting adverse effects
of xenobiotic compounds both in laboratory and field scales Figure 1.
1.3. Problem Formulation
