ABSTRACT
Several methods are used to obtain information on the “health status” of ecosystems. Chemical monitoring is one of the methods applied on a large scale to obtain information on the toxicological stress put upon ecosystems. One of the major disadvantages of this method is the limited number of substances that can be dealt with analytically. Additionally, ecotoxicological data are generated for only a few substances from the approximately 150,000 which are known in the European Inventory of Existing Chemical Substances (EINECS).
