As I have been updating my ecotoxicity results to reflect those of the update from the Environmental Footprinting Platform to USEtox 2.0, I notice that several of the pesticide a.i. CFs have changed. I’ve observed a 95% reduction in some and a 1000% increase in others relative to the Environmental Footprinting version. To what can these changes be attributed?
Different aspects contribute to the mostly negligible, but for some pesticide extreme difference in characterization factors between USEtox 1.01 and USEtox 2.0.
The most influential aspects are the consideration of the ionizing potential of chemicals (base, acid, amphoter) that influences mainly soil partitioning via Koc, whereas in USEtox 1.01 all chemicals were assumed to behave like neutral chemicals. Another main influence is that for most pesticides in USEtox, there are now available measured field soil degradation half-lives, whereas in USEtox 1.01 most of these half-lives were based on extrapolations. Additionally, other aspects like irrigation (onto agricultural soil) also influence the difference in factors between USEtox 1.01 and USEtox 2.0. These differences, however, do in all cases represent an improvement that relfects state-of-the-art and is based on scientific consensus.
All aspects influencing differences in resutls between USEtox 1.01 and USEtox 2.0 will be discussed in a related peer-reviewed publication that is currently under development.
I'm interested in better understanding the differences between USEtox 1.01 and USEtox 2.0. Is there any documentation currently available highlighting the changes made?
In the update process documentation it is stated that: 'the USEtox team shall document the entire updating process, from update suggestions, acceptance/rejection decisions, review reports, decisions on implementation, implementation actions, to eventual updated model and input/output, making all documents publicly accessible through the USEtox website.
Further to this, in the above post, the USEtox team states that: "All aspects influencing differences in resutls between USEtox 1.01 and USEtox 2.0 will be discussed in a related peer-reviewed publication that is currently under development." When is this paper slated for publication?
Thank you.
The USEtox team is currently working on a full model documentation that includes also highlighting the differences (updates) between USEtox 1.01 and USEtox 2.0. Both the full documentation and the accompanying scientific publication will be available within the coming months depending on internal and external review.