PARENT SESSION

6A - LCIA - Toxicity/RA
Hall 2
8:30 AM - 10:15 AM, Wednesday, 30 April 2003
Chair: Jolliet, O.¹, ¹
Co-chair: McKone, T.², ²

(WE2/3) Multimedia Models Comparison: State of the Art in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

Margni, Manuele¹, Pennington, David¹, Jolliet, Olivier¹, Guinée , Jeroen², de Koning, Arjan², ¹ Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, VD, Switzerland² Centre of Environmental Science (CML), Leiden University, Leiden, RA, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT- A novel framework for multimedia model comparisons, based on a systematic evaluation of selected intermedia fate and exposure parameters, is suggested to compare currently used models for toxicological impact assessments in LCA: USES-LCA, CalTOX and IMPACT 2002: 1) Comparison of published characterisation factors for emissions to air, water, and soil (also including EDIP method). 2) Comparison of characterisation factors for 3 release scenarios using a selected test set - a minimalised number of chemicals representing all potentially foreseeable fate & exposure combinations in the models. 3) Comparison of chemicals for test set, where there are large differences. Independent consideration of differences for intake fractions for human health, concentrations for ecotoxicological impacts, human health effects measures, and ecotoxicological effects measures. 4) For chemicals where there are differences in concentrations that influence the factors, comparison of overall rate coefficients and identification of intermedia, degradation, and advection rate coefficients that have a key influence. 5) Where there are intake fraction differences, identification of key exposure pathway(s) - considering the environmental concentration ratio between the environmental medium and the substrate (BCF) and the intake rates of the substrate. Results are presented and discussed establishing, systematically, where there are differences that influence the results and where these come from. Model scenario differences, like continental scale vs. the relevance of the global scale intake are taken into account.

Key words: fate and exposure, Multimedia modeling, comparison, intake fraction