Information quality of environmental and chemical databases exemplified by high production volume chemicals and pharmaceuticals

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to establish that data on chemicals detected in the environment are urgently needed to comply with the future environment and chemicals policy in the European Union. The availability of data on chemicals can be evaluated by environmetrical and chemometrical methods. Design/methodology/approach – The Hasse Diagram Technique (HDT) which originated in discrete mathematics is applied in this paper. It is a multi‐criteria evaluation method which can be used to measure information quality and is therefore also applicable for decision making. The study evaluated 15 environmental and chemical free internet databases with respect to the existence of data on chemicals in these resources. Two test‐sets were used first, 12 high production volume chemicals and, second 12 pharmaceuticals which are proven to enter the environment in considerable concentrations. Findings – The evaluation indicates a rather disturbing situation in the data availability on existing chemicals, an especially bad result concerning the data availability on pharmaceuticals and hence an alarming signal concerning the chemicals policy of the EEC. Originality/value – The information gap, especially for pharmaceuticals entering the environment, is demonstrated with a mathematically recognised method. The Hasse Diagram Technique can be applied to different questions in science when several objects are to be ranked by several criteria at the same time. Concerning the topic of the data availability on chemicals, the gaps are identified and should inspire future research to generate new and valuable data.