Can biomarkers measure the environmental health of estuaries?

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The European Commission’s Water Framework Directive (WFD) has emphasised the need for biological-effects end points that can be used to classify the ecological health of aquatic ecosystems. Accepting the premise that a healthy ecosystem is reflected in the ‘health’ of the constituent biota, we have advocated the application of using a suite of biomarkers (a biological response that signals exposure to and/or adverse effects of potential chemical, physical or biological hazards) to measure environmental health through an integrated assessment of the health status of individual organisms (and thereby the ecosystem).