era2010

Environmental Risk Assessment of chemical pollutants – VMK 2010

Environmental Risk Assessment

of Chemical pollutants


What is ERA ?

Determine or Predict the negative impact of chemical pollutants on the environment (aquatic)


Risk Quotient = PEC / PNEC

Principle


PNEC • Based on multi-species and • local species – site-specific ERA• Literature based toxicity data or new toxicity experiments

PEC

• RA for each environmental compartment i.e. sediment, surface water, groundwater, etc.

• RA at different spatial scales

Which chemicals (substances) to Assess?


Priority Substances

> 100.000 EINECS substances

> 2000 HPVCs

140Priority

Substances


Priority lists: factors to taken account

• the effects of the substance to man or the environment;

• the exposure of man or the environment to the substance;

• the lack of data on the effects of the substance on man and the environment;

• work already carried out in other fora;


Substance may obtain high scores if, for example

– it is produced in large volumes

– is used in a dispersive manner

– persists in the environment

– is highly toxic to humans, animals or plants

– has long term/chronic effects

– is carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction

– little is known about its properties, use or effects

Example: EU criteria for classification of Priority substances


STP

Air

Use

2. Effects Assessment

Aquatic + Terrestrial Environment

Production

1. Exposure Assessmentdetermine how much chemical will reach the environment

T r a n s p o r t

Determine the toxicity of the chemical on biota

(algae, invertebrates, fish)

Put in same units i.e. µg/L

Overview of ERA of chemicals

3. Risk CharacterisationExposure

effects


1. Hazard Identification

- new substances, ‘potential hazard’ based on scientific judgement

- existing substances – toxicity data

2. Effect Assessment

Calculate the Predicted No Effect Concentration

(PNEC)

3. Exposure Assessment

Calculate the Predicted Environmental Concentration

(PEC)

4. Risk Characterization

Calculate the Risk Quotient = PEC / PNEC


Environmental Risk Assessment: The general framework

PEC/PNEC

Risk characterization

Chemical with potential hazard

Single speciestoxicity data

Extrapolation

PNEC

Effects assessment

Emissions

Distribution

PEC target environment

Exposure assessment

EUSES


• Content of substance in productsContent of substance in products

• Service life of substance / productsService life of substance / products

• Disposal / re-cycleDisposal / re-cycle

• Production volumesProduction volumes

• Distribution of substance Distribution of substance

• Function (use) of substanceFunction (use) of substance

1. Exposure Assessment1. Exposure Assessment

Objective : To Predict the Environmental Concentration (PEC)

of the active substance

Parameters to take into account

• Characteristic of the recieving environmentCharacteristic of the recieving environment

Life cycle


Life cycle steps Life cycle steps PRODUCTION

FORMULATION

SERVICE LIFE

PRIVATE USE INDUSTRIAL USE

In product In product Processingaid

-

Processingaid

WASTE DISPOSAL - Incineration

- Landfilling - Recovery


PRODUCTION

FORMULATION

SERVICE LIFE

PRIVATE USE

INDUSTRIAL USE

WASTE DISPOSAL

Exposure Assessment at different spatial scales i.e. local, regional, continental

PEC Local

PEC Regional

PEC Continental


Target environment __________________________________________

Surface water aquatic organisms

Sediment sediment organisms

Soil terrestrial organisms

________________________________________

2. Effects Assessment

Objective: to Predict No Effect Concentration (PNEC) i.e. the threshood at which the substance posses no significant adverse effects


Effects assessment

• based on laboratory tests using single species and single chemicals

• different trophic levels

• obtain toxicity values i.e. short-term and /or long-term toxicity data

• calculate PNEC from the end-points (i.e. LC50, EC50) values

algaeinvertebrate

fish

Aquatic ecosystems


3. Risk Characterization

PEC

PNECRisk Quotient =

< 1 no risk to the environment

> 1 there is a risk, measures should be taken to reduce the risk

Risk Management - risk reduction steps - monitoring

- political, social, economic decissions


1. Exposure and Fate Assessment Screening Tool (E-FAST V2.0)

• It basically a screening tool intended for rapid assessment

• it estimates concentrations of chemicals released to air, surface water, landfills, and from consumer products.

• It support both new and existing chemical programs.

• E-FAST tends to and is designed to reasonably overestimate exposures.


2. ReachScan • Essentially, the purpose of ReachScan is to estimate concentrations of the chemical in surface water downstream from an industrial source to a drinking water facility. • It provides data about human habitation in the area of interest. • It is basically concerned with human risk assessment• but also estimates a level of the chemical that may adversely affect aquatic organisms.


3. Others

• AQUATOX is a freshwater ecosystem simulation model. It predicts the fate of various pollutants, and their effects on the ecosystem, including fish, invertebrates, and aquatic plants.

•Assessment Tools for the Evaluation of Risk (ASTER) – Mainly used by regulators in performing ecological risk assessments by providing high quality data for discrete chemicals.


European countries

European Union System for Evaluation of Substances

(USES)


European Union System for the Evaluation of Substances

EUSES


Why EUSES ???

- Its the most recent and comprehensive (many parameters considered)

- More realistic estiamates of processes such as degradation rates, geochemical processes

- Easy to adapt to other parts of the world

- Can be used for preliminarly and final assessment


EUSES: latest version (2.0.1)

• More complete life cycle assessment

• Release estimation – emissions from long-life articles– emissions from waste disposal including recovery

• Unintentional uses: calculation of background concentrations

• Biocide assessment (assessment of biocides when used for non –

agricultural purposes)


What we will do with EUSES

• Perform ERA for n-pentane.

• Perform parameter sensitivity analysis i.e. identifying those factors with the most influence on ERA of individual chemicals (n-pentane as an example)

• Adapting EUSES for other geographical regions /countries (editing default parameters)

• ERA for Biocide (Assessment of non -agricultural use of biocides)

• Several assingments on ERA using EUSES


Useful references

Books /DocumentsRisk Assessment of Chemicals: An Introduction.

C.J. van Leeuwen and J.L.M. Hermens (eds). 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 0-7923-3740-9

Technical Guidance Document (TGD) in support of EUSES

(European Chemical Bureau)

Internet resourceshttp://ecb.jrc.it/ (European Chemical Bureau, responsible for

EUSES) www.ecotox.org (searchable toxicity database from the EPA –

USA).

era2010

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