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ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase System User Guide Version 5.3
Citation:
Elonen, C. ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase System User Guide Version 5.3. US Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH, EPA/600/R-20/087, 2020.
Impact/Purpose:
ECOTOX provides a detailed set of toxic effects data that can be used in deriving not only local and federal Agency benchmarks such as the Superfund ecological soil screening levels, and OW ambient water quality criteria, but also for industrial chemical reviews, emergency responses, RCRA facility permits, and TMDLs. ECOTOX is now the most comprehensive ecotoxicology database and is essential for providing and supporting high quality models needed to estimate population effects of toxic chemicals across a wide range of species and spatially-explicit landscapes. In addition, ECOTOX provides a single repository for ecologically-based data, thereby improving consistency in effect characterizations. Without ECOTOX availability, States, Program and Regional Offices would need to create duplicative, 'stove-piped' databases to meet regulatory outputs and deadlines. This would lead to inconsistencies in retrieval and documentation of information used in regulatory actions, thereby adversely affecting the quality of decision-making at all levels of government.
Description:
The ECOTOX Knowledgebase is a comprehensive, publicly available application providing chemical environmental toxicity data on aquatic life, terrestrial plants and wildlife compiled from over 49,000 references covering more than 11,700 chemicals and 12,900 species. ECOTOX data are used for all ecological risk assessments supporting pesticide registrations and re-registrations, all ambient water quality criteria for chemicals published since 1985, site-specific water quality criteria (by EPA Regions, States, and Tribes), and assessments used in emergency response. ECOTOX has established standard operating procedures that meet requirements for Agency systematic reviews of available information for use in Agency decision making. To meet the data needs of 21st century toxicological assessments, new tools have been integrated into ECOTOX to improve data mining capabilities for end users such that environmental regulatory, the regulated industry, and researchers can more effectively and efficiently search and use existing toxic effects data. These additions are highlighted and explained in the updated Quick Reference guide and User guide documents.