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TRACI THE TOOL FOR THE REDUCTION AND ASSESSMENT OF CHEMICAL AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS - VERSION 2 CHANGES
Citation:
BARE, JANE CRUM. TRACI THE TOOL FOR THE REDUCTION AND ASSESSMENT OF CHEMICAL AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS - VERSION 2 CHANGES . Presented at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, March 29, 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
The Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts (TRACI) was developed to allow the quantification of environmental impacts for a variety of impact categories which are necessary for a comprehensive impact assessment. See Figure 1. TRACI is consistent with U.S. EPA regulations and policies, and assumptions and value choices have been minimized. During the development of TRACI, the U.S. EPA decided not to aggregate between environmental impact categories, so many of the impact assessment methodologies within TRACI are based on the relative potency of the stressors at a common midpoint within the cause-effect chain. See Figure 2 for the example for ozone depletion. This diagram shows that characterization could take place at the level of midpoints such as ozone depletion potential (midpoint) or endpoints (e.g., skin cancer, crop damage, immune system suppression). Analysis at a midpoint minimizes the amount of forecasting and effect modeling incorporated into the LCIA, thereby reducing the complexity of the modeling and increasing the comprehensiveness of impacts. The technical approach underlying several impact categories will be presented with new improvements including: addition of two emission media, addition of urban and rural emissions categories, and expansion of the ectoxicity category. Since TRACI’s release in 2001, over 15,000 copies have been distributed.