Toward Harmonizing Ecotoxicity Characterization in Life Cycle Impact Assessment.
Average rating
Cast your vote
You can rate an item by clicking the amount of stars they wish to award to this item.
When enough users have cast their vote on this item, the average rating will also be shown.
Star rating
Your vote was cast
Thank you for your feedback
Thank you for your feedback
Authors
Fantke, PeterAurisano, Nicolo
Bare, Jane
Backhaus, Thomas
Bulle, Cécile
Chapman, Peter M
De Zwart, Dick
Dwyer, Robert
Ernstoff, Alexi
Golsteijn, Laura
Holmquist, Hanna
Jolliet, Olivier
McKone, Thomas E
Owsianiak, Mikołaj
Peijnenburg, Willie
Posthuma, Leo
Roos, Sandra
Saouter, Erwan
Schowanek, Diederik
van Straalen, Nico M
Vijver, Martina G
Hauschild, Michael
Type
ArticleLanguage
en
Metadata
Show full item recordTitle
Toward Harmonizing Ecotoxicity Characterization in Life Cycle Impact Assessment.Published in
Environ Toxicol Chem 2018; 37:2955-71Publiekssamenvatting
Ecosystem quality is an important area of protection in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). Chemical pollution has adverse impacts on ecosystems at the global scale. To improve methods for assessing ecosystem impacts, the Life Cycle Initiative hosted at the United Nations Environment Programme established a task force to evaluate the state-of-the-science in modelling chemical exposure of organisms and resulting ecotoxicological effects for use in LCIA. Outcome of the task force work will be global guidance and harmonization by recommending changes to the existing practice in exposure and effect modelling in ecotoxicity characterization. These changes reflect the current science and ensure stability of recommended practice. Recommendations must work within the needs of LCIA in terms of (a) operating on information from any inventory reporting chemical emissions with limited spatiotemporal information, (b) applying best estimates rather than conservative assumptions to ensure unbiased comparison with results for other impact categories, and (c) yielding results that are additive across substances and life cycle stages and allow a quantitative expression of damage to the exposed ecosystem. Here, we report the current framework as well as discuss research questions identified in a roadmap. Primary research questions relate to the approach for ecotoxicological effect assessment, the need to clarify the method's scope and interpretation of its results, the need to consider additional environmental compartments and impact pathways, and the relevance of effect metrics other than the currently applied geometric mean of toxicity effect data across species. Because they often dominate ecotoxicity results in LCIA, metals pose a specific focus, which includes consideration of their possible essentiality and changes in environmental bioavailability. We conclude with a summary of key questions along with preliminary recommendations to address them as well as open questions that require additional research efforts. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.DOI
10.1002/etc.4261PMID
30178491ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1002/etc.4261
Scopus Count
Collections