Environmental toxicology: Fundamental and forensic

Abstract Toxicology plays an immense role in the field of environmental forensics, especially for the identification and assessment of hazardous chemicals such as drugs and heavy metals. However, to apply this study for environmental forensic investigations, the investigator must be equipped with prior knowledge regarding chemical toxicology. Therefore, this chapter aims to equip the reader with the fundamental knowledge for carrying out toxicological investigations by briefly describing some basic concepts of toxicology such as classification of toxicants, sources and routes of exposure, dispositioning of toxic chemicals, dose-response relationship, and hazard and risk assessment. Furthermore, the chapter also summarizes some basic concepts regarding toxicological investigations such as types of samples and procedure for sample collection, preservation, storage, and analysis. Case studies from Pakistan have also been highlighted to provide the reader with practical application of analytical toxicology for environmental forensic.