Uncertainty in msPAF-Based Ecotoxicological Effect Factors for Freshwater Ecosystems in Life Cycle Impact Assessment

Zelm, Rosalie van; Huijbregts, Mark A. J.; Harbers, Jasper V.; Wintersen, Arjen; Struijs, Jeroen N.; Posthuma, Leo; Meent, Dik van de

doi:10.1897/1551-3793(2007)3[e6:uimeef]2.0.co;2

Cited by 16 publications

(42 citation statements)

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“…Figure 2 shows that TMoAs with the largest uncertainties in the TMoA-specific part (∂msPAF/∂TU) have low median ∂msPAF/∂TU values. Van Zelm et al (2007) showed that for low spreads in toxicity between species, especially in combination with low ambient toxic pressure, uncertainty in ∂msPAF/∂TU is relatively large. This larger uncertainty is caused by the nonlinearity of the SSD curve: at low effective toxicity, the change in toxic pressure (PAF) following a change in toxicity is much larger than following the same change in toxicity at higher effective toxicity values.…”

Section: Interpretation Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the previous paper on HPVCs (Van Zelm et al 2007), several aspects in the model limitations and the results were discussed that account for pesticides as well since we applied the same method and model. Therefore, in "Section 4.1" and "Section 4.2", only the aspects that differ from HPVCs are discussed, and results for pesticides are stressed and compared to results for HPVCs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a previous paper, ecotoxicological effect factors for high-production-volume chemicals (HPVCs), including uncertainties thereof, were calculated with the nonlinear msPAF method (Van Zelm et al 2007). These HPVCs represented sets of compounds with rather nonspecific toxic modes of action (TMoAs).…”

Section: Background Aim and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The toxic pressure assessment method to calculate effect factors, as outlined by Van Zelm et al (2007) for HPVCs, was applied in this study for pesticides. Lognormal species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) were applied (Aldenberg and Jaworska 2000;Posthuma et al 2002;Slob 1994;Van de Meent and Huijbregts 2005;Wagner and Løkke 1991).…”

Section: Effect Factor Calculationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The subdivision of the ecotoxicological effect factor into a TMoA-specific and a chemical-specific part enables comparisons between chemicals with the same TMoA. If chemicals with the same TMoA are compared, solely the chemical-specific part needs to be investigated (Van Zelm et al 2007). …”

Section: Effect Factor Calculationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pesticide ecotoxicological effect factors and their uncertainties for freshwater ecosystems

Zelm

Huijbregts

Posthuma

et al. 2008

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Background, aim, and scope Characterization factors for ecotoxicity in the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) are used to convert emissions into ecotoxicological impacts. Deriving them involves a fate and an effect analysis step. The fate factor quantifies the change in environmental concentration per unit of emission, while the effect factor quantifies the change in impact on the ecosystem per unit of environmental concentration. This paper calculates freshwater ecotoxicological effect factors for 397 pesticides belonging to 11 pesticide-specific toxic modes of action (TMoA), such as acetylcholinesterase inhibition and photosynthesis inhibition. Moreover, uncertainties in the effect factors due to uncertain background concentrations and due to limited toxicity data are quantified. Methods To calculate median ecotoxicological effect factors (EEFs), toxic pressure assessments were made, based on the species sensitivity distribution-and the multisubstance potentially affected fraction-concept. The EEF quantifies an estimate of the fraction of species that is probably affected due to a marginal change in concentration of a pesticide. EEFs were divided into a TMoA-specific and a chemical-specific part, which were calculated on the basis of physicochemical properties, emissions, and toxicity data. Propagation of parameter uncertainty in the EEFs and the TMoA-and chemical-specific parts was quantified by Monte Carlo simulation and results were reported as 90% confidence intervals. Results Median EEFs range from 2·10 −3 to 7·10 6 l/g. Uncertainty in the TMoA-specific part is dominated by uncertainty in the TMoA-specific spread in species sensitivity and by uncertainty in the effective toxicity of a TMoA. Uncertainty in the chemical-specific part of the EEFs depends on the number of species for which toxicity data are available to calculate average toxicity (n s ) and ranges from a median uncertainty of 2.6 orders of magnitude for n s =2 to one order of magnitude for n s ≥4. The TMoA-specific effect factor for systemic fungicides shows the largest uncertainty range. For seven TMoAs, uncertainty ranges of the TMoA-specific effect factor are less than two orders of magnitude. For the other four TMoAs, the EEF uncertainty range is between two and eight orders of magnitude. For the chemical-specific part of the EEFs, we found that variation in uncertainty readily decreases for pesticides for which toxicity data are available for at least three species. Discussion The same parameters that contributed most to uncertainty were found for pesticides as were found before for high-production-volume chemicals. However, uncertainty in concentrations of pesticides was lower. TMoA-specific factors obtained with the applied nonlinear method differ up to nine orders of magnitude from the factor of 0.5, which is used in the linear method. With the applied method, a distinction in EEFs can be made among different TMoAs. Conclusions Ecotoxicological effect factors are presented, including overviews of their uncertainty ranges and the main ...

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Section: Interpretation Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Background Aim and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effect Factor Calculationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effect Factor Calculationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pesticide ecotoxicological effect factors and their uncertainties for freshwater ecosystems

Zelm

Huijbregts

Posthuma

et al. 2008

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Assessing predictive uncertainty in comparative toxicity potentials of triazoles

Golsteijn

Iqbal

Cassani

et al. 2013

Enviro Toxic and Chemistry

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Comparative toxicity potentials (CTPs) quantify the potential ecotoxicological impacts of chemicals per unit of emission. They are the product of a substance's environmental fate, exposure, and hazardous concentration. When empirical data are lacking, substance properties can be predicted. The goal of the present study was to assess the influence of predictive uncertainty in substance property predictions on the CTPs of triazoles. Physicochemical and toxic properties were predicted with quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs), and uncertainty in the predictions was quantified with use of the data underlying the QSARs. Degradation half-lives were based on a probability distribution representing experimental half-lives of triazoles. Uncertainty related to the species' sample size that was present in the prediction of the hazardous aquatic concentration was also included. All parameter uncertainties were treated as probability distributions, and propagated by Monte Carlo simulations. The 90% confidence interval of the CTPs typically spanned nearly 4 orders of magnitude. The CTP uncertainty was mainly determined by uncertainty in soil sorption and soil degradation rates, together with the small number of species sampled. In contrast, uncertainty in species-specific toxicity predictions contributed relatively little. The findings imply that the reliability of CTP predictions for the chemicals studied can be improved particularly by including experimental data for soil sorption and soil degradation, and by developing toxicity QSARs for more species.

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Improving substance information in USEtox^®, part 1: Discussion on data and approaches for estimating freshwater ecotoxicity effect factors

Saouter

Aschberger

Fantke

et al. 2017

Enviro Toxic and Chemistry

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The scientific consensus model USEtox 1 is recommended by the European Commission as the reference model to characterize life cycle chemical emissions in terms of their potential human toxicity and freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity impacts in the context of the International Reference Life Cycle Data System Handbook and the Environmental Footprint pilot phase looking at products (PEF) and organizations (OEF). Consequently, this model has been systematically used within the PEF/OEF pilot phase by 25 European Union industry sectors, which manufacture a wide variety of consumer products. This testing phase has raised some questions regarding the derivation of and the data used for the chemical-specific freshwater ecotoxicity effect factor in USEtox. For calculating the potential freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity impacts, USEtox bases the effect factor on the chronic hazard concentration (HC50) value for a chemical calculated as the arithmetic mean of all logarithmized geometric means of species-specific chronic median lethal (or effect) concentrations (L[E]C50). We investigated the dependency of the USEtox effect factor on the selection of ecotoxicological data source and toxicological endpoints, and we found that both influence the ecotoxicity ranking of chemicals and may hence influence the conclusions of a PEF/OEF study. We furthermore compared the average measure (HC50) with other types of ecotoxicity effect indicators, such as the lowest species EC50 or no-observable-effect concentration, frequently used in regulatory risk assessment, and demonstrated how they may also influence the ecotoxicity ranking of chemicals. We acknowledge that these indicators represent different aspects of a chemical's ecotoxicity potential and discuss their pros and cons for a comparative chemical assessment as performed in life cycle assessment and in particular within the PEF/OEF context.

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Uncertainty in msPAF-Based Ecotoxicological Effect Factors for Freshwater Ecosystems in Life Cycle Impact Assessment

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Pesticide ecotoxicological effect factors and their uncertainties for freshwater ecosystems

Pesticide ecotoxicological effect factors and their uncertainties for freshwater ecosystems

Assessing predictive uncertainty in comparative toxicity potentials of triazoles

Improving substance information in USEtox^®, part 1: Discussion on data and approaches for estimating freshwater ecotoxicity effect factors

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Uncertainty in msPAF-Based Ecotoxicological Effect Factors for Freshwater Ecosystems in Life Cycle Impact Assessment

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Pesticide ecotoxicological effect factors and their uncertainties for freshwater ecosystems

Pesticide ecotoxicological effect factors and their uncertainties for freshwater ecosystems

Assessing predictive uncertainty in comparative toxicity potentials of triazoles

Improving substance information in USEtox®, part 1: Discussion on data and approaches for estimating freshwater ecotoxicity effect factors

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Improving substance information in USEtox^®, part 1: Discussion on data and approaches for estimating freshwater ecotoxicity effect factors