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Environmental fate & pathways

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In assessing the ecotoxicity of metals in the various environmental compartments (aquatic, terrestrial and sediment), it is assumed that toxicity is not controlled by the total concentration of a metal, but by the bioavailable form. For metals, this bioavailable form is generally accepted to be the free metal-ion in solution. In the absence of speciation data and as a conservative approximation, it can also be assumed that the total soluble lead pool is bioavailable. All reliable data on ecotoxicity and environmental fate and behaviour of lead and lead substances were therefore selected based on soluble Pb salts or measured (dissolved) Pb concentration.

 

The reliable data selected for the environmental fate and behaviour of lead are all based on either monitoring data of prevailing lead concentrations in water, soil, sediment, suspended matter and organisms or on experimental resultswithlead (di)nitrate and lead chloride. All reliable data are expressed based on elemental Pb concentrations and grouped together in a read-across approach and will be used for all lead substances because upon dissolution of lead substances, the Pb-ion is the controlling adsorption and bioaccumulation.