A Revision of Current Models for Environmental and Human Health Impact and Risk Assessment for Application to Emerging Chemicals

Nowadays, we are living in the global circular economy, where products are produced, used and finally disposal in different parts of the world. These products have a huge amount of additives, that in many cases can be hazardous if there are not treated properly. The risk assessment of human health and the environment due to exposure to chemical additives is necessary. In this chapter the risk assessment is briefly introduced. Risk assessment is di-vided in four steps: hazard identification, hazard characterisation, exposure as-sessment, and risk characterisation. This chapter also highlights five risk and life cycle impact assessment models (EUSES, USEtox, GLOBOX, SADA, and MAFRAM) that allows for assessment of risks to human health and the environ-ment. In addition other 12 models were appointed. Finally, in the last section of this chapter, there is a compilation of useful data sources for risk assessment. The data source selection is essential to obtain high quality data. This source selection is divided in two parts. First, 6 frequently databases used for physicochemical and/or toxicological properties (TOXNET, eChemPortal, ATDSR, CPDB, IUCLID and ECOTOX) are presented. Second, 6 estimation data tools are pointed. The estimation tools are useful when it is not possible to find data parameters to assess the risk, for example, in the case of emerging pollutants or new substances. In conclusion, there is no risk assessment model better than another. All mod-els have their strengths and weaknesses. Many of them are focused on one particular aspect such as a single environmental compartment or in a kind of pollutant. It is important to remark that the selection of the data source is essential to obtain a quality results.