Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Identification of emerging
contaminants entering the
environment
Exposure
assessment
Effects
prediction
Risk-based priority lists
Identification of ECs of concern
Effects based analysis
Figure 5.2.
A potential scheme,
combining, risk prioritisation approaches,
ecological monitoring and effects based
analyses to identify emerging
contaminants posing the largest
environmental threat.
Ecological/Biomarker monitoring
either during the use of a product or following release into the environment.
The transformation pathways of many substance classes (e.g., pharmaceuticals
and plant protection products) have been well-characterised, and information
from these types of studies have been used to develop pathway prediction
systems for identifying potential transformation pathways of a 'new' molecule.
While these approaches are still not yet fully developed and evaluated, in the
future they could provide a very valuable tool for identifying transformation
products that could occur in a particular system.
Identification of high risk emerging contaminants
The presence of a substance in the environment is not necessarily an indicator
of an effect. To determine whether an EC is likely to pose a risk to the environ-
ment, we really need to assess the potential for exposure as well as the likely
effects. For many emerging contaminants, experimental data on fate and
effects in the environment are limited or non-existent although this situation
is changing as a result of new regulatory initiatives (e.g., REACh, requirements
for environmental risk assessment of pharmaceuticals). We do, however, have
a number of simple models available for estimating exposure in different
environmental systems and as long as the level of usage of a substance is
