EPA is combining different types of data to characterize impacts of chemicals to human health and the environment. The research provides accessible information to support scientific discovery and sustainable decisions. EPA researchers are using scientific advances to identify chemical characteristics and features that are associated with potential for environmental and human health impacts.

The research is generating chemical, biological and toxicological information to advance the understanding of relationships between chemical characteristics and potential impacts of use. This research will help EPA and others evaluate these chemicals prior to use to ensure they are the most effective and safest chemicals to use.

Our research analyzing the life cycle of chemicals focuses on four areas:

• Nanoparticles and emerging materials;
• Sustainable chemistry;
• Environmental and human health impacts of chemical use across the chemical/product life cycle; and
• Ecological modeling.

Nanoparticles and Emerging Materials

• Nanomaterials Research

Sustainable Chemistry

• Distributed Structure-Searchable Toxicity (DSSTox) Database Network
• Environmental Fate Simulator: Forecasting how chemicals move in the environment

Environmental and human health impacts of chemical use across the chemical/product life cycle

EPA is developing ways to efficiently evaluate environmental and human health impacts of chemical use across the chemical/product life cycle to support sustainability analysis, assessment of chemical alternatives and to help inform risk-based decisions.

• Life Cycle Perspective
• Life Cycle Resources
• Life Cycle Tool: Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts
• Program for Assisting the Replacement of Industrial Solvents (PARIS III)

Ecological Modeling

EPA evaluates the risk of pesticide use to threatened and endangered species. This research is using population effects and spatial distribution to develop ecological risk models to predict potential risk to ecological systems and the environment.

• Markov Chain Nest Productivity Model: estimates the impact of pesticide exposures on the reproduction success of bird populations.
• Web Ice: estimates acute toxicity to aquatic and terrestrial organisms for use in risk assessment.
• EcoTox: Provides information on adverse effects of single chemical stressors to ecologically relevant aquatic and terrestrial species. It includes more than 780,000 test records covering 12,000 aquatic and terrestrial species and 11,000 chemicals.