From Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Ecotoxicology—A Plea for More Concepts and Less Monitoring and Testing

The development of cultural and technical civilization has been marked with increasing interference in hydrogeochemical cycles and the production of a growing number of chemicals; this is accompanied by a growing concern on the potential adverse effects of chemicals on biological systems. Assessment of the potential toxicological and ecological effects of pollutants is of central importance. We are of the opinion that this cannot be accomplished by merely evaluating the harmfulness of a substance on the basis of toxicity tests with individual organisms and by monitoring analytically the environment for pollutants. We would like to encourage chemists to participate in the solution of ecotoxicological problems: chemodynamical concepts permit the estimation-on the basis of physical-chemical generalizations and with the help of compound-specific data-of the fate, the distribution, the potential for bioaccumulation in the food chain, and the approximate residence time of pollutants (and thus the attainable residual concentrations) in the environment and therefore to predict the relative risk of different pollutants.