Application of selected partial order tools to analyze fate and toxicity indicators of environmentally hazardous chemicals

Studies on fate and toxicity are important aspects in environmental impact assessments of chemicals. In order to elucidate “what is worst” a ranking of the chemicals under investigation is of significant interest, which obviously constitutes a multi-indicator system (MIS). Partial order methodologies turn out to be advantageous tools for analyses of such systems.In the present paper we focus on QSAR generated fate and toxicity indicators of 30 chemicals, comprising of a variety of chemical structures. In many risk assessment studies the level of a multi-indicator system is abandoned and the data are aggregated in order to obtain a composite index. However, such aggregation techniques are far from being trivial. The present paper describes an alternative strategy to handle MIS, i.e., applying partial order methodology leading to useful information. The paper demonstrate how partial order techniques lead to a weak order of the 30 chemicals as well as to the relative importance of the single indicators included in the study. Specifically, the paper addresses the topics on the “relations between the indicators” and “do chemical structures constitute a valid basis for ranking chemicals according to their environmental impact?”.