The Physiological and Biochemical Responses of Daphnia magna to Dewatered Drinking Water Treatment Residue

There have been widespread attempts to recycle drinking water treatment residue (DWTR) after dewatering for environmental remediation, which is beneficial for both the environment and the economy. The directly discharged DWTR without dewatering to natural water bodies, however, was reported to show signs of chronic toxicity to Daphnia magna (D. magna), a typical zooplankton in the aquatic environment. This study comprehensively assessed the effect of dewatered DWTR on the physiological and biochemical characteristics of D. magna based on acute and chronic toxicity tests. The results showed that the survival, growth, reproduction, body morphology of offspring, and the antioxidant enzymes of D. magna were not affected by the dewatered DWTR. These physiological and biochemical indexes also had no undesirable changes for the DWTR-amended sediments (with ratios of 0–50%) incubated for 10 and 180 d; the growth and reproduction were even promoted when D. magna was exposed to 5000 mg-sediment L(−1), which may be due to the extra nutrients supplied by the amended sediments for the animals. The results demonstrated that by contrast with the directly discharged DWTR without dewatering, the dewatered DWTR could be safe to D. magna. Further analysis suggested that heavy metals (Pb, Ni, Cu, Cr, and Zn) with relatively low concentrations and high stability could be the main reasons leading to the high safety of the dewatered DWTR. Overall, dewatered DWTR can be considered a non-hazardous material for zooplankton.