Publications

The FAIR principles as a key enabler to operationalize safe and sustainable by design approaches

Karakoltzidis, Achilleas; Battistelli, Chiara Laura; Bossa, Cecilia; Bouman, Evert; Garmendia Aguirre, Irantzu; Iavicoli, Ivo; Jeddi, Maryam Zare; Karakitsios, Spyros; Leso, Veruscka; Løfstedt, Magnus; Magagna, Barbara; Sarigiannis, Denis; Schultes, Erik; Soeteman-Hernández, Lya G.; Subramanian, Vrishali; Nymark, Penny

Safe and sustainable development of chemicals, (advanced) materials, and products is at the heart of achieving a healthy future environment in line with the European Green Deal and the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability. Recently, the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) developed the safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) framework for definition of criteria and evaluation procedure proposed to be established in Research and Innovation (R&I) activities. The framework aims to support the design of chemicals, materials and products that provide desirable functions (or services), while simultaneously minimizing the risk for harmful impacts to human health and the environment. While many industrial sectors already consider such aspects during R&I, the framework aims to harmonize safety and sustainability assessment across diverse sectors and innovation strategies to meet the mentioned overarching policy goals. A cornerstone to successfully implement and operationalize the SSbD framework lies in the availability of high-quality data and tools, and their interoperability, aspects which also play a key role in ensuring transparency and thereby trust in the assessment outcomes. Availability of data and tools depend on their machine-actionability in terms of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability, in line with the FAIR principles. The principles were developed in order to harmonize digitalization across all data domains, supporting unanticipated data-driven “seamless” integration of information and generation of new knowledge. Here we discuss the essentiality of FAIR data and tools to operationalize SSbD providing views and examples of activities within the European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC). The discussion covers five areas previously brought up in relation to the SSbD framework, and which are highly dependent on implementation of the FAIR principles; (i) digitalization to leverage innovation towards a green transition; (ii) existing data sources and their interoperability; (iii) navigating SSbD with data from new scientific developments (iv) transparency and trust through automated assessment of data quality and uncertainty; and (v) “seamless” integration of SSbD tools.

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)

The evaluation of atmospheric pollution in Europe, The EMEP Programme. Powerpoint presentation. NILU F

Aas, W.

The European hot spot of B[a]P and PM2.5 exposure - The Ostrava region, Czech Republic: Health research results.

Sram, R.J.; Dostal, M.; Libalova, H.; Rossner Jr.; P.; Rossnerova, A.; Svecova, V.; Topinka, J.; Bartonova, A.

The European Database for Ultraviolet Climatology and Evaluation (EDUCE).

Seckmeyer, G.; Edvardsen, K.; Engelsen, O.; Kylling, A. et al.

The EUROCOM project: A collaborative reanalysis of European CO2 fluxes over the period 2006-2015

Monteil, Guillaume; Lang, Matthew; Broquet, Grégoire; Scholze, Marko; Karstens, Ute; Peylin, Philippe; Thompson, Rona Louise; Gerbig, Christoph; Koch, Thomas; van der Laan-Luijkx, Ingrid Theodora; Smith, Naomi; White, Emily; Meesters, Anton; Tarniewicz, Jerome; Rivier, Leonard

The EU PROPAINT project - improved protection of paintings during exhibition, storage and transit. NILU PP

Dahlin, E.M. (co-ordinator).

The ESA WACMOS-ET: WP1300 - Reference Input Data Set Technical Specification. NILU F

Jimenez, C.; Prigent, C.; Aires, F.; Trigo, I.; Viterbo, P.; Schneider, P.; Prata, F.; Muller, J.-P.; Disney, M.; Miralles, D.; McCabe, M.; Reichstein, M.; Jung, M.; Hirschi, M.; Muller, B.; Seneviratne, S.

The ESA WACMOS-ET Project: Advancing in the production of evapotranspiration from satellite observations. NILU F

Jimenez, C.; Prigent, C.; Miralles, D.; Trigo, I.; Muller, J.-P.; Disney, M.; McCabe, M.; Ershadi, A.; Muller, B.; Hirschi, M.; Seneviratne, S.; Schneider, P.; Prata, F.; Fisher, J.; Mu, Q.; Su, B.; Timmermans, J.; Abouali, M.; Chen, X.; Aires, F.; Jung, M.; Reichstein, M.; Fernandez, D.

The ESA WACMOS-ET project: Advancing in the production of evapotranspiration from satellite observations. NILU F

Jimenez, C.; Prigent, C.; Aires, F.; Miralles, D.; Trigo, I.; Muller, J.P.; Disney, M.; McCabe, M.; Ershadi, A.; Muller, B.; Hirschi, M.; Seneviratne, S.; Schneider, P.; Prata, F.; Jung, M.; Reichstein, M.; Fisher, J.; Mu, Q.; Su, B.; Timmermans, J.; Abouali, M.; Chen, X.; Fernandez, D.

The eruption of Kasatochi Volcano; Remote sensing and transport modeling of the emitted sulfur dioxide cloud. NILU PP

Kristiansen, N.I.; Stohl, A.; Prata, A.J.; Richter, A.; Eckhardt, S.; Seibert, P.; Hoffmann, A.; Ritter, C.; Bitar, L.; Duck, T.J.; Stebel, K.

The EmSite model for high resolution emissions from machinery in construction sites

Lopez-Aparicio, Susana; Grythe, Henrik

The report describes the EmSite model developed to estimate exhaust and non-exhaust emissions from non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) used in building and construction. The model is based on a complete national database of the exact location of construction and building activity, machine registries and variables that affect emissions (ground conditions, meteorology, type of ground material). EmSite model allows us to determine, i) the location, area and time of construction projects at fine resolution; ii) energy demand for NRMM; and iii) fuel consumption, air pollutants and GHGs emissions. For exhaust emissions, specific dynamic emission factors for NRMMs were developed. For non-exhaust emissions, an approach based on the Tier 1 (EMEP/EEA Guidebook, 2019) was chosen. EmSite allows for bottom-up estimates for NRMM employed in construction, and the results are comparable with official air pollutant and GHGs emissions.

NILU

The Emissions Fractions Approach to Assessing the Long-Range Transport Potential of Organic Chemicals

Breivik, Knut; McLachlan, Michael S.; Wania, Frank

The assessment of long-range transport potential (LRTP) is enshrined in several frameworks for chemical regulation such as the Stockholm Convention. Screening for LRTP is commonly done with the OECD Pov and LRTP Screening Tool employing two metrics, characteristic travel distance (CTD) and transfer efficiency (TE). Here we introduce a set of three alternative metrics and implement them in the Tool’s model. Each metric is expressed as a fraction of the emissions in a source region. The three metrics quantify the extent to which the chemical (i) reaches a remote region (dispersion, ϕ1), (ii) is transferred to surface media in the remote region (transfer, ϕ2), and (iii) accumulates in these surface media (accumulation, ϕ3). In contrast to CTD and TE, the emissions fractions metrics can integrate transport via water and air, enabling comprehensive LRTP assessment. Furthermore, since there is a coherent relationship between the three metrics, the new approach provides quantitative mechanistic insight into different phenomena determining LRTP. Finally, the accumulation metric, ϕ3, allows assessment of LRTP in the context of the Stockholm Convention, where the ability of a chemical to elicit adverse effects in surface media is decisive. We conclude that the emission fractions approach has the potential to reduce the risk of false positives/negatives in LRTP assessments.