Themed collection Modeling in Environmental Chemistry

Guest editors Matthew MacLeod, Todd Gouin and Thomas McKone introduce the Modeling in Environmental Chemistry themed issue of Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts.

The elements of the aggregate exposure pathway have been refined to better facilitate organization, integration, and dissemination of exposure data.

Applying POP screening to a large chemical domain requires less reliance on individual criteria and more on integrated assessment with models.

A regulatory perspective on the application of fate and exposure modeling in the past and for the future.

Indexes for the prioritization of potential hazardous chemicals can be derived and modelled by combining PCA and QSAR models.

The article explores how tiered and targeted information acquisition can improve the effectiveness of the human exposure assessment process.

We outline a research strategy that will deliver more effective theory and models for environmental risk assessment of chemicals.

Twenty-five years of progress in modeling the environmental fate and exposure of organic contaminants is reviewed, and a strategy for more rapidly adopting scientific progress into regulatory models is proposed.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is responsible for risk assessment of all aspects of food and feed safety, including the establishment of procedures aimed at the identification of emerging risks to food safety.

The effect of policy on fish mercury levels varies spatially, even within the Great Lakes Basin.

A model simulating high-resolution concentration changes of various herbicides in Japan was developed and validated.

A meta-analysis summarises the removal of fragrances, surfactants, and pharmaceuticals and identifies the main influencing parameters.

The chemical dietary absorption efficiency (E_D) quantifies the amount of chemical absorbed by an organism relative to the amount of chemical an organism is exposed to following ingestion.

Modeled residence times of volatile methyl siloxanes exceed several persistence criteria in aquatic environments.

Most of the currently used risk assessment scenarios are based on steady scenario conditions which may not reflect environmental variations in time and space.

Global multi-scale modeling platform for spatial analysis of population intake and multimedia source apportionment of 4000+ Australian emission sources.

The concept of differential SOA yield and a consideration of kinetic processes are important when modelling SOA formation under atmospherically relevant conditions.

Applying passive sampling to reactive species may be a way to obtain information about in situ reactivity of compounds in sediments that occur on timescales of days to months.

Release of dopamine by Ulvaria obscura var. blyttii may, allelopathically, assist Ulvaria growth by H₂O₂ generation and benefit the bloom region through alleviation in iron stress and by mitigating the effects of other oxidative metabolites.

Physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models are considered useful tools to describe the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of xenobiotics.

The uptake and output processes and lipid content for an aquatic organism affects BCF, BAF, BMF, and TMF values.

PbTk simulations with hydrophobic chemicals have revealed that diffusive transport through aqueous boundary layers in the gastro-intestinal tract and in the blood is the limiting process for oral uptake scenarios. This process can only be modelled correctly if transport facilitated by albumin and bile micelles through these boundary layers is accounted for.

Microbial biomass and acclimation can affect the removal of organic chemicals in natural surface waters.

Here we present and evaluate a method to determine PUF-PAS sampling rates (R_S), and the effective sampling volume (V_eff), for gas-phase chemical compounds deployed anywhere in the world.