It is impossible and ethically undesirable to experimentally determine the sensitivity of all species present in rivers, lakes and streams everywhere around the world to all chemicals to which they can possibly be exposed. Therefore, a valuable method to help with the assessment environmental safety of chemicals is to extrapolate the known chemical sensitivity of species, for which toxicity has been determined, to species for which the toxicity is unknown. This method is also known as cross-species extrapolation of chemical sensitivity and is aimed at predicting the sensitivity of realistic species assemblages to chemicals. Creating a cross-species extrapolation modelling tool, flexible to different taxonomic and chemical groups, would allow for its incorporation into aquatic risk assessment, where it can assist in the protection of biodiversity.
Therefore, the two main objectives of this new project are: i) to transform an already existing cross-species extrapolation modelling framework into a userfriendly tool that can construct predictive models for multiple aquatic taxonomic and chemical groups, and ii) to deliver a set of case studies that demonstrate how this tool can directly be applied for aquatic water quality and risk assessment purposes.
We expect that this tool could be used to evaluate important modelling aspects for the application of trait and lineage-based models (e.g. exposure duration, effect endpoints), and facilitates their incorporation into ecological risk assessment.

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