Creation of a Curated Aquatic Toxicology Database: EnviroTox

Flexible, rapid, and predictive approaches that do not require the use of large numbers of vertebrate test animals are needed because the chemical universe remains largely untested for potential hazards. Development of robust new approach methodologies and nontesting approaches requires the use of existing information via curated, integrated data sets. The ecological thresholdof toxicological concern (ecoTTC) represents one such new approach methodology that can predict a conservative de minimistoxicity value for chemicals with little or no information available. For the creation of an ecoTTC tool, a large, diverse environmental dataset was developed from multiple sources, with harmonization, characterization, and information qualityassessment steps to ensure that the information could be effectively organized and mined. The resulting EnviroTox database contains 91 217 aquatic toxicity records representing 1563 species and 4016 unique Chemical Abstracts Service numbers and is a robust, curated database containing high‐quality aquatic toxicity studies that are traceable to the original information source. Chemical‐specificinformation is also linked to each record and includes physico‐chemical information, chemical descriptors, and modeof actionclassifications. Toxicity data are associated with the physico‐chemical data, modeof actionclassifications, and curated taxonomic information for the organisms tested. The EnviroTox platform also includes 3 analysis tools: a predicted‐no‐ effect concentrationcalculator, an ecoTTC distribution tool, and a chemical toxicity distribution tool. Although the EnviroTox database and tools were originally developed to support ecoTTC analysis and development, they have broader applicability to the field of ecological risk assessment. Environ Toxicol Chem 2019;9999:1–12. © 2019 The Authors. Environmental Toxicologyand Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of SETAC.