Dae-Sik Hwang

Recurrent freshwater cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (CyanoHABs) are often managed as isolated episodes. Rapid clearing can leave nutrient stores, sediment recycling, benthic recruitment, and food web instability largely unchanged. This critical narrative review summarizes intervention roles, failure modes, and monitoring needs using a structured inventory of 53 selected core sources, with contextual reviews and guidance. Searches covered PubMed, selected publisher interfaces, and citation tracing through 27 September 2026; the inventory is not an exhaustive or systematic evidence map. Of 30 empirical sources, only seven extend beyond six weeks, including one 56-day mesocosm, so evidence for sustained recurrence reduction is limited. We distinguish Tier 1 (prevention and ecological stabilization), Tier 2 (targeted response and localized exposure reduction), and Tier 3 (restricted emergency containment). The proposed Intervention Decision Audit adapts established adaptive management and impact assessment principles into a practical checklist linking the recurrence mechanism, study scale and follow-up, intervention choice, safeguards, responsible authority, exit conditions, and outcome evaluation. Its contribution is this explicit linkage for recurrent CyanoHAB decisions, rather than new principles of adaptive management. Success should be assessed through bloom recurrence and duration, toxin and exposure risk, ecological condition, and dependence on repeated emergency treatment. The checklist has not yet been prospectively validated in management practice.

This study employed an integrated field monitoring approach, combining chemical analysis and ecotoxicity testing of multiple environmental matrices—water, sediment, and sediment elutriates—to comprehensively assess the environmental health of the Andong watershed, located near a Zn smelter and mining area. The primary objectives were to evaluate the extent of metal contamination, identify key toxicants contributing to ecological degradation, and trace the sources of these pollutants. Our findings revealed severe metal contamination and significant ecotoxicological effects both in proximity to and downstream from industrial sites. Specifically, Cd, Zn, and Pb were strongly linked to the smelter, while Hg, Ni, Cu, and As were predominantly associated with mining activities in the tributaries. To further assess toxicity of field-collected sediment and their elutriates, a logistic regression analysis was employed to estimate benchmark values for distinguishing between toxic and non-toxic samples, using the sum of toxic units for sediment elutriates and the mean probable effect level (PEL) quotient for sediment toxicity. These models demonstrated greater predictive accuracy than conventional benchmarks for determining toxicity thresholds. Our results highlight that integrating chemical and ecotoxicological monitoring with site-specific concentration–response relationships enhances the precision of ecological risk assessments, facilitating more accurate identification of key toxicants driving mixture toxicity in complex, pollution-impacted aquatic ecosystems.

The SPEcies-At-Risk index for metals (SPEARmetal) was refined using updated physiological sensitivity data and validated to assess the ecological impact of metal contamination on benthic macroinvertebrate communities in the upper Nakdong River, near a Zn smelter in Korea. Biosurvey and chemical monitoring were collected at 18 sites surrounding the smelter and nearby mines. Acute ecotoxicity tests on 20 indigenous species from the Korean peninsula were conducted and used to update taxon-specific metal sensitivity data. The refined SPEARmetal index, based on this updated sensitivity, was significantly lower than previous versions, with most values below the severe impact threshold (0.5) in the mainstream. The correlation between hazard quotients in water and the SPEAR index improved, with the correlation coefficient increasing from 0.63 to 0.70. Despite consistently high benthic macroinvertebrate indices (BMI) across the study area, generic ecological indices such as total richness, EPT (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera), and Shannon diversity showed correlations with metal contamination levels. Principal component analysis identified SPEARmetal as the primary indicator associated with metal contamination in both water and sediment. These findings highlight the improved performance of the refined SPEARmetal index as a more sensitive and specific tool for assessing the ecological status of metal-impacted aquatic ecosystems compared to traditional indices.