Damage of chemical substances in life cycle impact assessment

Abstract

The environmental impact assessment for chemical substances on human health damage has been of significantinterest sometime in the EU, USA, and Japan. In Thailand, such an environmental impact is now receiving more attention.The present study focuses on developing the damage factors of chemical substances on human health based on the multimedia box type fate and exposure model via IMPACT 2002, with the model adapted to Thailand. Human health damagefactors are expressed in terms of disability–adjusted life year (DALY) per kg emission. The development method includesfour steps: fate analysis, exposure analysis, potency, and severity analysis. This study derived new damage factors of 144chemical substances that quantify the impact damage of an emission change on human health damage. It was found that thecharacterization factors for human health damage range from 7.34×10-9to 1.30×103 DALY per kg emitted. This workprovides new information for damage factors on human health in Thailand based on the IMPACT 2002 model, modified forThailand. Future research should include uncertainty analysis of the major relevant parameters, which could provideinformation on the reliability of the damage function.