Risk assessment based on QSAR estimates

Risk assessment deals with the expected environmental concentration-time profile for a chemical at specific locations in various media during manufacture, use, and dissipation of the product that may result in hazard to man and the environment. The necessary information to judge on environmental hazard and risk, resulting from the use of chemicals, are accessible from field/laboratory studies and various modeling techniques. In ecological risk assessment, uncertainties concerning potential effects must be explicitly recongized and, if possible, quantified. Quantitative structure - activity relationships (QSARs) are a tool to recognize and utilize the systematic relationships between the chemical behaviour and the biological, ecotoxicological, and pharmacological activity of chemicals.