RT Book, Section
A1 Gochfeld, Michael
A1 Burger, Joanna
A2 Wallace, Robert B.
SR Print(0)
ID 1141968713
T1 Environmental and Ecological Risk Assessment
T2 Maxcy-Rosenau-Last Public Health and Preventive Medicine, 15e
YR 2017
FD 2017
PB McGraw-Hill Medical
PP New York, NY
SN 9780071441988
LK accessbiomedicalscience.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1141968713
RD 2024/04/19
AB Risk  assessment  is  a  formalized  process  for  characterizing  and  estimating  the  magnitude  of  harm  resulting  from  some  condition—usually  exposure  to  one  or  more  hazardous  substances  in  the  environment.  This  chapter  addresses  what  risk  assessment  is,  what  it  is  used  for,  and  how  it  is  done.  “Environmental  risk  assessment”  usually  refers  to  human  health  risks,  while  “ecological  risk  assessment”  refers  to  damage  to  natural  or  artificial  ecosystems,  wildlife  species,  and  endangered  species.  There  are  some  common  properties  and  important  differences.1,2  Environmental  risk  assessment  interfaces  with  environmental  toxicology  and  exposure  assessment,  while  ecological  risk  interfaces  with  ecotoxicology.  Risk  assessments  are  used  in  a  wide  variety  of  context,  for  example,  to  establish  no  effect  concentrations3  which  can  inform  cleanup  levels,4  sediment  quality  standards,5  or  comparison  of  alternative  remediation  strategies.  Ecological  risk  is  also  applied  to  the  probability  of  extinction  of  species  or  populations  (population  viability  analysis)  due  to  chance6  or  pollution,7  and  to  the  likelihood  that  exotic  species  will  become  invasive.8  Increasingly,  governments  and  the  public  have  realized  that  it  is  critical  to  protect  the  health  and  well-being  of  ecological  systems,  both  for  their  own  value  as  well  as  for  the  ecological  services  that  they  provide  for  humans  including  safe  drinking  water,  clean  air,  fertile  land  for  agriculture,  unpolluted  waters  for  fisheries,  erosion  control  and  stabilization  of  coastal  environments,  and  places  for  recreation  and  other  aesthetic  pursuits  so  important  to  people.9  Ecological  risk  has  been  linked  with  the  growing  interest  in  restoring  damaged  habitats.10  Moreover,  changes  in  ecosystem  health  can  have  direct  effects  on  human  health  by  changing  human  exposure  to  disease  organisms.11  Risk  assessment  for  genetically  modified  crops  bridges  human  health  and  ecological  concerns.12  Harmonization  of  ecological  and  human  health  risk  assessment  has  been  done  on  a  few  occasions  (see  below).13,14