Overall goal/objectives:
The aim of the present case study is to evaluate the benefits and impact of incorporating NAMs-based vertebrate data into the derivation of species sensitivity distributions (SSDs). Species sensitivity distributions represent a probabilistic distribution of the measured sensitivities of different species of organisms to a given substance. They are generally used to identify concentrations expected to have minimal to negligible effects on exposed ecosystems (i.e., protective concentrations). Analysis of SSDs plays a key role in many regulatory ecological risk assessment contexts including the setting of long-term federal water quality guidelines in Canada, aquatic life criteria derivation in the US, and derivation of European environmental quality standards, to name a few. As such, the derivation and use of SSDs is familiar to many risk assessors and regulators. One of the greatest challenges associated with use of SSDs in regulatory risk assessments are sparse data sets, where species coverage is limited. Consequently, the application of NAMs data to expand species coverage (and thus data richness) when deriving a SSD could be highly beneficial.
Case Study Leader:
ECCC (Rebecca Dalton), US EPA (Dan Villeneuve)
Collaborators:
US EPA, ECCC
Status: In Progress
Presentations or publications that have been publicly released:
- Manuscript in process
