Implementation of bioavailability-based metal guideline values in Australia and New Zealand – Part 2

Publication details

Australian and New Zealand governments, and Australian state and territory governments, 2026

This report is the second of 2 reports that document the process for deriving metal default guideline values (DGVs) for copper, nickel and zinc in freshwater. This report documents the second part of the process, as follows:

• the calculation of bioavailability-adjusted protection concentration (BAPCx) values at varying levels of protection for copper, nickel and zinc based on the collated data for all samples at all sites where data were available
• the construction of probability distributions of those BAPCx values to identify the waters in Australia and New Zealand with the highest metal bioavailability
• The selection of DGVs for use in screening within the tiered assessment framework. The selection of the DGVs was based on the 5th percentile of BAPCx values in the most sensitive areas of Australia and New Zealand – i.e. aiming to protect at least 95% of waters in each country. 

Much of this work was funded by the Metals Environment Research Associations (MERA) under the project titled “Implementation of bioavailability-based metal guideline values for Australia and New Zealand”.

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