Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA)

NIVA is an environmental research organisation committed to research, monitoring, assessment and studies on freshwater, coastal and marine environments, in addition to environmental technology. NIVA has several certifications and accreditations. Among these are a certification in accordance with ISO9001, and all laboratory activities are accredited in accordance with ISO17025. NIVA abides by the OECD's principles for Good Laboratory Practice (GLP). The laboratory is included in the Norwegian Accreditation registry of GLP-inspected laboratories and is subject to the provisions of the Norwegian Accreditation's GLP scheme. NIVA is the first laboratory in Norway to gain accreditation for implementation of the conformity assessment of laboratories in chemical analyses in compliance with NS-EN ISO/IEC 17043. The institute also gives expertise on ISO and OECD expert groups and provides the Norwegian representative for OECD activities and ISO water quality at international level. The Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) offers regulatory studies on chemicals such as those recommended by the EU’s REACH legislation. We also provide advice and guidance to importers and producers of chemicals on the testing and characterisation required by REACH.

Competence: NIVA has a multidisciplinary competence within water related issues. The ecotoxicology laboratory performs routine tests for determining toxicity, biodegradability and bioaccumulation of chemicals in conformity with international standards (OECD Guidelines, ISO) and the quality system GLP. The ecotoxicology group has experience and competence working with marine and freshwater ecotoxicology tests in both the aquatic and sediment compartment can offer these toxicity tests (according to GLP) for all legislative requirements. NIVA are also part of a consortium to provide scientific services for the European Chemcials Agency (ECHA). Dr Kevin Thomas is project leader for a NFR project: “FORURENS: Engineered nanoparticle interactions with the environment: towards a better understanding of the risk they pose (ENPERA)“. The project specifically targets engineered nanoparticles and how they influence system and process understanding. The project seeks to establish a knowledgebase that will inform the process of understaning the risks posed to the environment from engineered nanoparticles. Other nano related involvement from NIVA includes involvment in NanoImpact Net and the Nordic NanoNet group for the safety assessment and management of nanomaterials.

Infrastructure: The Ecotoxicology and Risk Assessment laboratory at NIVA consists of molecular toxicology and cell culture facilities e.g. laminar flow cabinets, several centrifuges, light and fluorescence microscopes, cell incubators, coulter counter, PCR, Microarray. The Ecotoxicology laboratories consist of several climate controlled rooms and three stand alone algal incubators for culturing and testing, continuous cultures of test organisms e.g. D. magna, T. battagliai, C. riparius, rotifers and a bank of algal cultures, both marine and freshwater, as well as being licensed to conduct fish studies. The group also has access to Dynamic Light scattering (DLS) equipment (Zetasizer Nano series), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and are fully supported with a wide array of chemical analysis techniques by the NIVA chemistry lab.