Hello,
I would like to use the USEtox™ to estimate the potential freshwater impacts of pesticides in Finland. We used the USEtox™ 1.01-model in our previous study (Räsänen K., Mattila P., Porvari S., Kurppa S. ja Tiilikkala K. 2015. Estimating the development of ecotoxicological pressure on water systems from pesticides in Finland 2000-2011". Journal of Cleaner Production 89 (2015) 65-77.)
Could you kindly answer to some questions related to the updated model?
- Previously the model was customized to fit Finnish regional environmental conditions by obtaining the relevant parameters from GIS. Now in the updated version there are couple new parameters in sheet of ‘Landscape’: ‘Wind speed over mixing height (m.s-1)’ and ‘Irrigation (km3)’? I tried to understand based on the literature what those means but did not succeeded. What does those mean and what values I could use in my Finnish case? All other parameters I already have.
- Is it so that only continental scale should be counted into the calculations? So global scale is not included yet?
'Wind speed over mixing height' refers to the average wind speed over the height of the continental air box (for example, the US region has an average wind speed of 7.0 m/s over the lowest 1000 m of air). This advective wind speed over 1000 m is typically higher than the 3 m/s used in USEtox, which is the default wind speed at 10 m height used to determine exchange rates between air, soil and water surface compartments. Please find additional details in Kounina et al. (2014).
'Irrigation' from continental and global fresh water to agricultural soil refers to agricultural water withdrawal based on Aquastat (FAO's Global Information System on Water and Agriculture). Please find additional details in the USEtox Documentation (equation 118 ff).
These and other spatial parameters in USEtox are recommended for use in a sensitivity analysis of the average continent values and are based on full parameterization of underlying fate processes. Please find additional details in Kounina et al. (2014).
Emissions only happen on the urban or continental scale. The global scale is included to complete the chemical mass balance when calculating fate, exposure and effects in USEtox and is hence included in the characterization factor results.
Thank you for your response!
So simply we should just use 'W12 Northern Europe & Northern Canada' from the landscape data in our Finnish case?
It is best if you use one of the parameterized (sub-)continents, yes. It is still possible to tailor USEtox toward specific country settings (see e.g. Bratec et al.2019, Table 2). However, not all processes in USEtox can be parameterized toward new country settings, such as net-sedimentation rate, which has to be derived from the global mass balance. Overall, country specific settings asre possible in USEtox, but are recommended for use as sensitivity analysis of default average settings rather than for reflecting true spatial settings.
Thank you for you advice!