EU Approach for Environmental Exposure Assessment: Actual Status and Future Needs

Abstract

To estimate the environmental concentration of a chemical substance, as required by the legislation of the European Union in the context of the risk assessment of chemical substances, several mathematical models are proposed. Representative and reliable analytical monitoring data for the different environmental compartments are indeed only seldom available. The proposed models are simple models as for instance multimedia fugacity models. Although the results of these models only provide an imperfect approximation of the concentration in the different compartments, very high uncertainties can lie upon certain input parameters, like the quantities of the substance released during one of its life-stages, its biodegradation rate in the respective compartments or its partition coefficients between those compartments. The improvement of the risk assessment scheme as proposed by the EU-Member States should focus on these input parameters. This might imply further adapting the test methods or even the requested test battery to the physical-chemical properties or even the structure of a substance.

Key Words:

• Chemical substance
• risk assessment
• mathematical models
• environmental exposure
• release estimation