Publication Abstract

Background Increasing numbers of chemicals with little-known adverse effects (i.e. contaminants of emerging concern (CECs)) are released into the marine environment. The present study addresses the lack of marine-specific prioritisation schemes to support decision making. This prioritisation is supported by a database containing approximately 1.13 million chemicals, developed through the PikMe project. Criteria for chemical prioritisation were identified by a comprehensive literature review, then selected using the outcomes of a survey among experts. The prioritisation tool consists of filtering chemicals in the PikMe database using three parallel schemes — persistence and bioaccumulation, toxicity, and persistence and mobility characteristics (step 1) — followed by scoring based on modes of action, occurrence, and emission (step 2) and ranking by the final score (step 3).

Results Around 8,000 chemicals were selected by filtering (step 1). The top 100 resulted from step 3 comprises chemicals with high diversity of uses, e.g. pharmaceuticals as the predominant category of use, industrial chemicals, personal care products, flame retardants, and plastic additives. These chemicals were ranked in the top 100 due to dominant influence of diverse prioritisation criteria.

Putu Yolanda Yulikayani, Bavo De Witte, Aasim Ali, Jon Barber*, Juan Bellas, Nicolas Briant, Steven Brooks, Are Sæle Bruvold, Megan Anne French, Ketil Hylland, Helen Kaberi, Víctor M. León, Samantha Martins, Aourell Mauffret, Francesca Molinari, Malcolm Reid, Joachim Sturve, Christof Van Poucke, Stig Valdersnes, Christophe Walgraeve, Kristof Demeestere, Aina Charlotte Wennberg