title: A rule-based screening environmental risk assessment tool derived from EUSES.
abstract: Within the context and scope of the forthcoming European Union chemical regulations (REACH), there is a need to be able to prioritise the chemicals for evaluation. Therefore, a simple, pragmatic and adequately conservative approach for the identification of substances of very low or no immediate concern at an early stage is presented. The fundamental principles and basic concepts are derived from the EU Technical Guidance Document and EUSES, and are translated into an easy-to-use rule-based system. For this development, the effect on risk characterisation ratios (RCRs) of the key environmental parameters in EUSES was quantified (taking into account several standardised chemical release scenarios). Using statistical analysis, ranges were identified for each key parameter, within which the end result of the assessment was not significantly affected. This information was then translated into a lookup table from which environmental risk characterisation ratios can be directly read as a function of a few parameters.
authors.affiliation: Ghent University, BIOMATH, Applied Mathematics, Biometrics and Process Control, Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Gent, Belgium. frederik.verdonck@biomath.ugent.be
authors.forename: Frederik A M
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Verdonck
authors.forename: Geert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Boeije
authors.forename: Veronique
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vandenberghe
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Comber
authors.forename: Watze
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: de Wolf
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Feijtel
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Holt
authors.forename: Volker
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lecloux
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Siebel-Sauer
authors.forename: Peter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Vanrolleghem
mesh_terms: D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity; D005062:European Union; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D019055:No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods*; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants