Characterizing surface water concentrations of hundreds of organic chemicals in United States for environmental risk prioritization

Background Thousands of chemicals are observed in freshwater, typically at trace levels. Measurements are collected for different purposes, so sample characteristics vary. Due to inconsistent data availability for exposure and hazard, it is complex to prioritize which chemicals may pose risks. Objective We evaluated the influence of data curation and statistical practices aggregating surface water measurements of organic chemicals into exposure distributions intended for prioritizing based on nation-scale potential risk. Methods The Water Quality Portal includes millions of observations describing over 1700 chemicals in 93% of hydrologic subbasins across the United States. After filtering to maintain quality and applicability while including all possible samples, we compared concentrations across sample types. We evaluated statistical methods to estimate per-chemical distributions for chosen samples. Overlaps between resulting exposure ranges and distributions representing no-effect concentrations for multiple freshwater species were used to rank estimated chemical risks for further assessment. Results When we apply explicit data quality and statistical assumptions, we find that there are 186 organic chemicals for which we can make screening-level estimates of surface water chemical concentration. Of the original 1700 observed chemicals, this number decreased primarily due to a predominance of censored values (that is, observations indicating concentrations too low to be measured). We further identify 423 chemicals where all measurements were censored but, through consideration of detection limits, risk might still be prioritized based on the detection limits themselves. In the final set of 1.5 million samples, the median environmental concentration of one chemical (acetic acid) exceeded the 5th percentile of no-effect concentrations for the most delicate freshwater species (the highest priority risk condition identified here), and a further 29 chemicals were identified for possible further evaluation based on a small margin between occurrence and toxicity values. Significance This method shows the broad range of chemical concentrations seen for organic chemicals across the country and identifies methods of determining their central tendency, allowing for researchers to characterize higher-than-normal or lower-than-normal surface water conditions as well as providing an overall indication of the presence of organic chemicals in the United States. The highest chemical concentrations did not always indicate the highest-risk conditions. Even when accounting for the high level of uncertainty in these data due to differences in data collection and reporting across the set, some chemicals may still be categorized as higher environmental risk than others using this method, providing value to chemical safety decision makers and researchers by suggesting avenues for more focused investigation.

Automated summary

This study evaluates the impact of data curation and statistical practices on surface water concentration of organic chemicals, and proposes a method for ranking potential risks. The results show a wide range of organic chemical concentrations across the United States and identify chemicals that may pose higher environmental risks.