Modelling the environmental transfer of phthalates and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans into agricultural products: The EN-forc model

This study aimed to predict the occurrence of four phthalates, two polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and two polychlorinated dibenzofurans in environmental and agricultural media from observed concentrations in air, sludge, manure and concentrate. For the environmental and agricultural fate modelling, the newly developed multimedia model “EN-forc” (ENvironmental Food transfer model for ORganic Contaminants) was used. To validate EN-forc calculations, the predicted concentrations of the considered chemicals in soil, groundwater, drinking water, plants and animal products were compared with both observed and modelled concentrations available in the literature. For the majority of the considered matrices, predicted phthalate and dioxin levels differed one order of magnitude at most with observed concentrations. Unfortunately, the transfer models implemented in EN-forc lacked power to predict levels of some phthalates and dioxins in pasture, root crops and/or tubers. Concentrations of phthalates and dioxins in offal could not be predicted due to the absence of suitable models that have an acceptable level of complexity to implement in EN-forc. For this type of food products, further research is highly encouraged. In a next step, the modelling framework of EN-forc will be extended in order to be able to predict human dietary exposure to organic chemicals like phthalates and dioxins.