Heterogeneity in biological assemblages and exposure in chemical risk assessment: Exploring capabilities and challenges in methodology with two landscape-scale case studies

In a Nutshell

   

ECETOC scientists have studied the feasibility of including georeferenced data to improve the ecological relevance of chemical safety assessments. Doing this would enable such assessments to take into account spatial and temporal patterns of chemical exposure and species distribution. The Task Force concluded that this is technically possible. However, at this point, the assessment of risk would be less well resolved because of the limited range of ecotoxicity data. In addition, there are not many comprehensive and consistent ecological data sets that span large geographic areas.