Ecologists are being asked to respond to unprecedented environmental challenges. How can they provide the best available scientific information about what will happen in the future? Ecological Forecasting by Michael Dietze is the first book to bring together the concepts and tools needed to make ecology a more predictive science.
The Partnership for Chemicals Risk Assessment (PARC) is currently under development as a joint research and innovation programme to strengthen the scientific basis for chemical risk assessment in the EU. The plan is to bring chemical risk assessors and managers together with scientists to accelerate method development and the production of necessary data and knowledge, and to facilitate the transition to next-generation evidence-based risk assessment, a non-toxic environment and the European Green Deal. The NORMAN Network is an independent, well-established and competent network of more than 80 organisations in the field of emerging substances and has enormous potential to contribute to the implementation of the PARC partnership. NORMAN stands ready to provide expert advice to PARC, drawing on its long experience in the development, harmonisation and testing of advanced tools in relation to chemicals of emerging concern and in support of a European Early Warning System to unravel the risks of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and close the gap between research and innovation and regulatory processes. In this commentary we highlight the tools developed by NORMAN that we consider most relevant to supporting the PARC initiative: (i) joint data space and cutting-edge research tools for risk assessment of contaminants of emerging concern; (ii) collaborative European framework to improve data quality and comparability; (iii) advanced data analysis tools for a European early warning system and (iv) support to national and European chemical risk assessment thanks to harnessing, combining and sharing evidence and expertise on CECs. By combining the extensive knowledge and experience of the NORMAN network with the financial and policy-related strengths of the PARC initiative, a large step towards the goal of a non-toxic environment can be taken.
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The unique feature of the NDS is that it provides a comprehensive set of data on CECs together with a range of innovative applications for their hazard and risk assessment. These tools range from physico-chemical properties, use characteristics, mass spectral information, and exposure data from target and non-target screening in all environmental compartments, to ecotoxicity data and in situ bioassay signals reflecting mixture toxicity. The NDS currently consists of 12 modules (Fig. 1), of which eleven (Substance Database (SusDat); Suspect List Exchange (SLE); Chemical Occurrence Data (EMPODAT); Ecotoxicology; Bioassays Monitoring Data; MassBank Europe; Digital Sample Freezing Platform (DSFP); Indoor Environment; Passive Sampling; Substance Factsheets; Prioritisation) are accessible, interlinked and populated with data. The 12th is an antibiotic-resistant bacteria and genes module (ARB&ARG) that is still under development, while a new module hosting data on microplastics is currently being designed.
Further develop the Substance Database (SusDat) as the cornerstone of a common European platform where information on highly relevant and newly discovered environmental pollutants can be shared in a harmonised format [11].
We believe that the combination of NORMAN Suspect List Exchange (SLE) [12] and the merged NORMAN Substances Database [13] of the NDS could be a globally leading model for collaboratively working towards such a list. Numerous organisations, national and international regulatory agencies and research groups from Europe and North America already contribute to this initiative. NORMAN SLE is a platform to share lists of substances potentially responsible for emerging risks to ecosystems and human health. The submitted lists are shared with US EPA CompTox Chemicals Dashboard [14, 15] and PubChem [16, 17] and are published on Zenodo [18]. By acting as a data collector, the NORMAN SLE has become an important source of specialised research information for major chemical databases such as PubChem and CompTox, beyond the realms and means of individual researchers. In return, the integration of the NORMAN SLE into major chemical databases adds enormous value to the original contributions, offering up new functionality for all parties.
A game changer for next generation chemical risk assessment is a system able to provide comprehensive information on the exposure of humans and the environment to large numbers of chemicals during the entire life cycle of products, including waste and recycled products.
Thanks to NTS techniques it is possible to obtain an overview of human and environmental exposure to thousands of chemicals simultaneously, with a high level of sensitivity and selectivity, including chemicals that have not been identified previously [25]. The NTS workflows (comprising wide-scope target, suspect and non-target screening) based on full scan, high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), developed by NORMAN members, represent the state-of-the-art methods to deal with real-world contaminant mixtures in a more holistic way.
Thanks to all the above-mentioned interconnected tools, DSFP can provide reliable qualitative and semi-quantitative data on the occurrence of already identified as well as novel CECs, thereby providing exhaustive insight into the spatial and temporal distribution of contaminant mixtures in the environment, making NORMAN DSFP a virtual environmental observatory on chemical contamination. Extensions of DSFP for additional chemicals captured in SusDat (e.g. highly polar molecules and gas chromatography-only amenable substances) are under way.
NORMAN brings together the leading European institutions in the development and harmonisation of measurement methods for the detection of emerging chemicals in the environment. The studies organised by the network represent a crucial step for the scientific community and for environmental agencies for validation and harmonisation of innovative sampling and monitoring tools before their possible future implementation in regulations.
In the past decade, NORMAN has developed an integrated strategy to deal with less-investigated substances for which knowledge gaps are identified (e.g. insufficient information on the exposure levels and/or adverse effects, or inadequate performance of the analytical methods for their measurement in the environment) [45]. The concept involves the application of a decision tree which allows the allocation of substances into six main action categories, based on the identified knowledge gaps and actions needed to address them. The priority within each category is then evaluated on the basis of specific occurrence, hazard (persistence, bioaccumulation, mobility, endocrine disruption potential, etc.) and risk indicators such as the Frequency of Exceedance (FoE) and Extent of Exceedance (EoE) of the Lowest PNECs.
Bioassays are the only currently available methods able to respond to the recently recognised need to address unknown mixture risks present in the environment, which can then be linked to specific chemical compounds via chemical analysis [52, 53].
In terms of practical implementation of EBMs in the regulation, another crucial step is the determination of effect-based trigger values (EBT), which define the acceptable level of effect for each toxicological endpoint of concern and thus allow environmental managers to interpret EBM data and distinguish between more and less polluted sites. In collaboration with the SOLUTIONS project (FP7/603437), NORMAN has contributed to the drafting of a proposal for a harmonised methodology for the definition of effect-based trigger (EBT) values [57] and the way to proceed when an EBT is exceeded [58, 59].
Organise Europe-wide collaborative environmental monitoring programmes using novel analytical methodologies in a broad range of matrices and on selected super-sites providing representative geographical coverage and results directly supporting regulations.
Improve the sharing and use of local, regional, national and EU-level monitoring data between countries and policy areas (e.g. legislation for environment, chemicals, food, products, waste, etc.) and relevant institutions.
NORMAN works in close cooperation with international river basin organisations (e.g. the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) 14 European countries and the EU; organising Joint Danube Surveys every 6 years), sea conventions (e.g. Black Sea Commission; OSPAR), environmental specimen banks and environmental authorities in various Member States (e.g. France, Germany, Nordic countries, The Netherlands).
In 2019 the NORMAN Association received funding from the ICPDR as a contribution in support of its participation in the experimental activities of the 4th Joint Danube Survey (JDS4). The added value of this type of collaboration is the opportunity to investigate and demonstrate the capabilities and limits of new environmental assessment frameworks with a clear link to their application in a regulatory framework.
Scientific knowledge continues to progress, and novel tools are constantly being developed. This helps competent authorities and industry in the full value chain of chemicals to provide answers to unanswered or newly arising questions regarding risks of chemicals to the environment and human health, with a particular focus on early warning, anticipation and prevention of future risks.
In this paper, we have sought to provide a clear and transparent message about how NORMAN as an independent, well-established and competent network of expert organisations in the field of emerging substances has enormous potential to contribute to the implementation of the PARC partnership by sharing several of its existing key tools that we believe are particularly relevant to the success of the initiative. 2ff7e9595c
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