Work package WP1 – Monitoring chemicals exposure and mixture effects in real-world terrestrial food chains
Lead Beneficiary: Naturalis / Paola Movalli
OBJECTIVES: The overall objective of WP1 is to understand routes of exposure to chemicals in wildlife, including routes and extent of trophic transfer, for selected food chains (from soil and soil water to plants to primary and secondary consumers to apex species) in representative terrestrial ecosystems. The specific objectives of WP1 are to: (1) detect and determine chemicals present, and predominant chemical mixtures, in selected food chains (from plants and primary consumers to apex predators), in representative terrestrial ecosystems. (2) for detected and determined chemicals, understand routes of exposure including routes and extent of trophic transfer. (3) explore patterns for individual contaminants and predominant mixtures in terrestrial trophic chains. (4) elucidate toxic effects of chemical mixtures in terrestrial food chains using an effects-based approach. (5) identify and collate secondary data on contaminants along trophic chains in terrestrial ecosystems in Europe.
Work package WP2 – Modelling chemical source-to-damage pathways in terrestrial ecosystems
Lead Beneficiary: DTU / Peter Fantke
OBJECTIVES: The overall objective of WP2 is to model source-to-receptor pathways of chemicals for terrestrial ecosystems, and link organism effects to damage on species, genetic and functional diversity and on ecosystem services. The specific objectives of WP2 are to: (1) provide a set of terrestrial source-to-receptor pathways for chemicals and compare them against receptor limits for these chemicals. (2) characterise the link between terrestrial ecotoxicity effects to damage on species and genetic diversity. (3) derive metrics and associations for damage on multi-trophic functional diversity and delivery damage on selected ecosystem services.
Work package WP3 – Prevention and mitigation of chemical impacts on terrestrial ecosystems
Lead Beneficiary: UBA / Gabriele Treu
OBJECTIVES: The overall objective of WP3 is to facilitate regulatory and practice uptake of monitoring and modelling output to improve environmental risk assessment of chemicals and thereby improve chemical pollution prevention and risk management measures to ultimately reduce the negative effects on biodiversity. The specific objectives of WP3 are to: (1) develop consistent schemes to prioritize chemical risks/damage to terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity. (2) optimise current ERAs by exploring possible refinements and analysing the feasibility to implement these refinements (novel approaches) into existing ERA practices. (3) trigger RMM and explore innovative alternative measures through an in-depth analysis to reduce damage to biodiversity.
Work package WP4 – Conceptual framing, integration and data management
Lead Beneficiary: EI / Jaroslav Slobodnik, Nikiforos Alygizakis & Guy Duke
OBJECTIVES: The main objective of WP4 is to refine the TerraChem conceptual framework, ensure integration of monitoring (under HLO1), modelling (HLO2) and prevention and mitigation (under HLO3), ensure coherence with related project, platform, partnership and policy/regulatory initiatives and pertinence for key end-users, and develop a TerraChem Data Management System as a one-stop shop for data on contaminants in terrestrial biodiversity in Europe. The specific objectives of WP1 are: (1) To refine the TerraChem conceptual framework integrating work under WPs 1, 2 and 3. (2) To align work under WPs 1, 2 and 3 through cross-evaluation at each stage of the chemical source-to-damage pathway. (3) To engage with key stakeholders for collaborative research and innovation. (4) To establish a TerraChem Data Management System (TDMS) hosting data generated under WPs 1 and 2 (and pertinent pre-existing secondary data). (5) To develop a TerraChem Early Warning System for chemicals in the terrestrial compartment in Europe. (6) To develop a TerraChem Dashboard as a front-end to the TDMS, providing together a one-stop shop for the storage, analysis and visualisation of data on chemicals in the terrestrial compartment in Europe.
Work package WP5 – Maximising impact – dissemination, exploitation, communication
Lead Beneficiary: EI / Guy Duke & Natalia Glowacka
OBJECTIVES: The main objective of WP5 is to maximise the impact of the project through effective, strategic and comprehensive dissemination and exploitation including communication measures. The specific objectives of WP5 are to: (1) To achieve a strategic approach to dissemination, exploitation and communication to ensure wide recognition amongst target audiences and support all project partners to disseminate and exploit project results to optimise project impact. (3) To create and maintain a clear project brand identity, web platform and diverse communication channels to ensure that project activities and outputs are easily accessible. (3) To optimise dissemination of project results during and beyond the project duration. (4) To optimise exploitation of project results through clear identification of innovation and ensuring that partners and external bodies exploit these outputs during and beyond the project duration.
Work package WP6 – Project Management
Lead Beneficiary: EI / Guy Duke & Jaroslav Slobodnik
OBJECTIVES: The main objective of WP6 is to ensure the transparent, effective, and efficient implementation of the project and dedicated resources. The specific objectives of WP6 are: (1) To implement transparent and efficient project coordination and management, including contract, consortium, financial, risk and innovation management, subcontracting, work planning and budgeting, and ensure high quality and timely delivery of project milestones and deliverables. (2) To ensure high quality and timely technical and financial reporting. (3) To coordinate open science. (4) To ensure sound management of equality, diversity, and inclusion.
Work package WP7 – Ethics requirements
Lead Beneficiary: EI / Guy Duke & Jaroslav Slobodnik
OBJECTIVES: The objective is to ensure compliance with the ‘ethics requirements’ set out in this work package.