Abstract
Environmental policymaking relies heavily on the knowledge of the toxicological properties of chemical pollutants. The ecotoxicological research community is an important contributor to this knowledge, which together with data from standardized tests supports policy-makers in taking the decisions required to reach an appropriate level of protection of the environment. The chemosphere is, however, massive and contains thousands of chemicals that can constitute a risk if present in the environment at sufficiently high concentrations. The scientific ecotoxicological knowledge is growing but it is not clear to what extent the research community manages to cover the large chemical diversity of environmental pollution. In this study, we aimed to provide an overview of the scientific knowledge generated within the field of ecotoxicology during the last twenty years. By using text mining of over 130,000 scientific papers we established time-trends describing the yearly publication frequency of over 3500 chemicals. Our results show that ecotoxicological research is highly focused and that as few as 65 chemicals corresponded to half of all occurrences in the scientific literature. We, furthermore, demonstrate that the last decades have seen substantial changes in research direction, where the interest in pharmaceuticals has grown while the interest in biocides has declined. Several individual chemicals showed an especially rapid increase (e.g. ciprofloxacin, diclofenac) or decrease (e.g. lindane and atrazine) in occurrence in the literature. We also show that university- and corporate-based research exhibit distinct publication patterns and that for some chemicals the scientific knowledge is dominated by publications associated with the industry. This study paints a unique picture and provides quantitative estimates of the scientific knowledge of environmental chemical pollution generated during the last two decades. We conclude that there is a large number of chemicals with little, or no, scientific knowledge and that a continued expansion of the field of ecotoxicology will be necessary to catch up with the constantly increasing diversity of chemicals used within the society.
Highlights
Environmental chemical pollution is caused by emissions from the production, use and disposal of chemicals and chemical-containing materials
18,928 chemicals were selected for this study from four disparate databases containing information on compounds that are currently, or have previously been, used or produced within the society: 1) chemicals registered under the European Union (EU) legislation REACH, 2) currently approved and unapproved active ingredients from plant protection products (PPP) within the EU registered at the Euro pean Food Safety Authority (EFSA), 3) currently approved and unap proved active ingredients of biocides within the EU registered at the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and 4) pharmaceuticals approved by the United States (US) Federal Drug Administration (FDA)
In this study we have shown that the publication patterns related to environmental chemical pollution have changed significantly during the last twenty years
Summary
Environmental chemical pollution is caused by emissions from the production, use and disposal of chemicals and chemical-containing materials. In order to reduce the risk from these emissions and protect humans and the environment, both voluntary and mandatory manage ment strategies have been implemented Many of these management strategies rely heavily on scientific expertise and knowledge about chemical pollutants, including their physical and chemical properties, toxicity, potential adverse effects on wildlife, and fate in the environ ment is central (Martin et al, 2019; Silbergeld et al, 2015). This knowledge is in part generated during the registration of chemicals, which, in some jurisdictions, requires a prospective chemical risk assessment based on the results from standardized tests (OECD, 2021). Regulatory decisions are based on both standardized tests - as required by safety assessment policies - and ecotoxicological scientific knowledge in order to make them as informed, balanced and sustainable as possible (Ruden et al, 2017)
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