Topic 9: Healthy Planet

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About Topic 9

Mission:

The mission of Topic 9 is to work towards a healthy environment that is minimally compromised by chemical pollution and safeguards health and well-being of people. The quality of our lives has improved using services provided by chemicals but environmental pollution contributes to burden of disease and causes adverse environmental effects. We are exposed to a multitude of chemicals through multiple pathways from different sources. Topic 9 proposes new approaches to advance hazard assessment by accounting for the totality of chemicals in our bodies and the environment and by relating exposure to mixtures of chemicals through mechanistic networks to adverse outcomes. The acquired knowledge will support sustainable chemistry and improve environmental monitoring.

Our focus:

Organisms in their environment are exposed to a multitude of potentially harmful substances. 16% of all global premature human deaths are estimated to be attributable to pollution. Topic 9 aims at understanding the fate and effects of chemicals from both an ecosystem and a human health perspective. It strives to aggregate different stressors for their joint impact. Understanding of the sources, fate and effect of mixtures of chemicals in the environment, including biota and humans, informs approaches for design of sustainable chemicals and their integrated risk assessment. It enables better design of future monitoring and management strategies. This research provides tools for coping with the food-water-energy security nexus in collaboration with other Topics of the Program.

Topic 9 seeks to innovate risk assessment by introducing novel concepts and methods to deal with mixtures and demonstrating their use in real-world landscape-scale case studies. Synergies will result from integrating environmental chemistry with systems biology, ecology and epidemiology. This approach promises to contribute to a mechanistic understanding of disease and adverse ecological outcomes that supports the EU strategy for a non-toxic environment.

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Recent Highlights

Is global plastic pollution nearing an irreversible tipping point?

Press Release: Science paper "The global threat from plastic pollution"

Plastic pollution accumulating in an area of the environment is considered “poorly reversible” if natural mineralization processes occurring there are slow and engineered remediation solutions are improbable. Potential impacts from poorly reversible plastic pollution include changes to carbon and nutrient cycles; habitat changes within soils, sediments, and aquatic ecosystems; co-occurring biological impacts on endangered or keystone species; ecotoxicity; and related societal impacts. The rational response is to rapidly reduce plastic emissions through reductions in consumption of virgin plastic materials, along with internationally coordinated strategies for waste management.

Project: German Monitoring of Plant Protection Products in Small Streams

Press Release: German Monitoring of Plant Protection Products in Small Streams

PFAS

Press Release: PFAS pose a risk to humans and the environment - PFAS ban urgently needed

Structure

Graphic Representation of Subtopics

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Subtopics in detail

The association of chemical data on exposure with adverse health effects provides the ground for the detailed mechanistic analysis of the impact of chemicals and chemical mixtures on environmental and human health. In this subtopic we therefore consider the distribution of chemicals in our bodies and model systems like the zebrafish as well as their biodegradation and transformation in organs like the liver and the intestinal microbiome. For obtaining a mechanistic understanding we work on prospective mother-child cohorts and experimental in vivo and in vitro models. For the analysis we make use of state-of-the-art bioanalytical methods ranging from genomics to metabolomics and the matching tools for their evaluation by bioinformatic and machine learning for determining the underpinning mode of action and the corresponding key events in order to define adverse outcome pathways.

Spokesperson: Kristin Schubert (UFZ)
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The number of chemicals used and emitted to the environment is continuously increasing and hundreds of compounds can be detected in water bodies, wildlife and human bodies. By combining advanced chemical tools with the observation of adverse effects from the cell up to the population and landscape level we develop strategies for better monitoring and mitigation in Subtopic 9.2. We combine measurement with in-depth mechanistic understanding and models to diagnose combined effects of chemicals with other stressors in multiply used landscapes. We explore and map (eco)toxic footprints from different sources in selected case studies and at larger scales and support measures to make cities and landscapes more sustainable with innovative monitoring. In line with the One-Health concept, we explore hazardous mixture exposures and impacts in combination linking human biomonitoring in large cohort studies with wastewater analysis.

Spokesperson: Stefan Scholz (UFZ)
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Links to CARFS/CCA

MACE: Mainstreaming Environmental Assessment for Complex Exposure

Participating Center

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[Translate to Englisch:] Expedition of the German research vessel SONNE. Photo: Die Aktivisten

[Translate to Englisch:] Catching a big blue barrel floating on the ocean surface in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch from the German research vessel SONNE during expedition SO268/3 crossing the North Pacific Ocean.Photo: Roman Kroke / UFZ

[Translate to Englisch:] Passive Sampling Dosing at the German research vessel SONNE during expedition SO268/3 crossing the North Pacific Ocean. Photo: Roman Kroke / UFZ