ecological risk Articles
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Aquatic predicted no effect concentrations of 16 PAHs and their ecological risks in surface seawater of Liaodong Bay, China
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a class of ubiquitous pollutants in marine environments, exhibit moderate to high adverse effects on aquatic lives and humans. However, the lack of toxicity data of PAHs to aquatic organism limited the evaluation of their ecological risks. In the present study, aquatic predicted no effect concentrations (PNECs) of 16 priority PAHs were derived based on ...
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Review of ecological‐based risk management approaches used at five Army Superfund sites
Factors used in environmental remedial decision making concerning ecological risk are not well understood or necessarily consistent. Recent Records of Decision (RODs) for Army CERCLA sites were reviewed to select case studies where remedial management occurred in response to ecological risks. Thirty‐four Army RODs were evaluated representing decisions promulgated between 1996 and 2004. Five were ...
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Assessing ecological risks at US Department of Energy facilities using methods borrowed from landscape ecology and habitat suitability analysis. Part II. Adapting Habitat Suitability Index models and landscape-scale ecological models for use in ecolo
Historical and continuing US Department of Energy (USDOE) operations have not only contaminated the environment but have altered the landscape as well as habitat quality and quantity. The changes in the landscape that have occurred within USDOE facilities may be as important as assessing the effects resulting from the release of chemical contaminants into the environment. We examined several ...
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Fuzzy assessment of human-health risks due to air pollution
Uncertainty of input data creates fuzzy conditions for assessing and forecasting ecological risk and risks associated with human health due to environmental pollution. Many uncertainties are difficult to eliminate and they do not have sufficient structure so that they can be modelled or described by probabilities and probability processes. This paper describes the application of a formalism of ...
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Challenges for exposure prediction in Ecological Risk Assessment
Evaluating organism exposure in the ecosystems is a difficult task and can be carried out measuring or predicting concentrations in the environment. While current regulatory approaches favour a modelling approach, they either use a static representation of the environment and of the chemical discharge or a simplified dynamic approach (e.g. dealing with pesticides). Improving the ecological ...
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Development of an innovative conceptual model and a tiered testing strategy for the ecological risk assessment of rice pesticides
Rice paddies constitute a very special agrobiosystem, which for some circumstances, could be considered as a human driven wetland. The complexity of such dynamic systems is a key element for conducting ecological risk assessments, in addition, the proximity of rice paddies to areas of high ecological value must be considered. This paper presents a new conceptual model for conducting ecological ...
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A refined aquatic ecological risk assessment for a pyrethroid insecticide used for adult mosquito management
The use of pyrethroid insecticides has increased substantially throughout the world over the past few decades as the use of organophorous, carbamate, and organochlorine insecticides is being phased out. Pyrethroids are the most common class of insecticides for ultralow‐volume (ULV) aerosol applications used to manage high densities of adult mosquitoes. Pyrethroids are highly toxic to nontarget ...
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Microplastics: Addressing ecological risk through lessons learned
Plastic litter is an environmental problem of great concern. Despite the magnitude of the plastic pollution in our water bodies there is still limited scientific understanding about the risk for the environment, particularly for microplastics. The apparent magnitude of the problem calls for quickly developing sound scientific guidance on the ecological risks of microplastics. We suggest future ...
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The ecological risk assessment and suggestions on heavy metals in river sediments of Jinan
The concentrations of eight heavy metals (Cr, Hg, As, Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn, Ni) in six river sediment samples were collected for evaluation of the degree of the heavy metals pollution distribution and ecological risk of three main rivers' sediments in Jinan. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to determine the most common pollution sources. The results illustrated that all of the metals ...
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Toxicity of Pb‐contaminated soil to Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) and the use of the blood/dietary Pb slope in risk assessment
This study relates tissue concentrations and toxic effects of Pb in Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) to the dietary exposure of soil‐borne Pb associated with mining and smelting. From 0 to 12% contaminated soil, by weight, was added to five experimental diets (0.12 to 382 mg Pb/kg, dry weight) and fed to the quail for six weeks. Benchmark doses associated with a 50% reduction in ALAD ...
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Ecological risk assessment in the context of global climate change
Changes to sources, stressors, habitats, and geographic ranges; toxicological effects; end points; and uncertainty estimation require significant changes in the implementation of ecological risk assessment (ERA). Because of the lack of analog systems and circumstances in historically studied sites, there is a likelihood of type III error. As a first step, the authors propose a decision key to ...
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Ranking ecological risks of multiple chemical stressors on amphibians
Populations of amphibians have been declining worldwide since the late 1960s. Despite global concern, no studies have quantitatively assessed the major causes of this decline. In the present study, species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) were developed to analyze the sensitivity of anurans for ammonium, nitrate, heavy metals (cadmium, copper), pesticides (18 compounds), and acidification (pH) ...
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Influence diagrams as decision‐making tools for pesticide risk management
The pesticide policy arena is filled with discussion of probabilistic approaches to assess ecological risk, however, similar discussions about implementing formal probabilistic methods in pesticide risk decision making are less common. An influence diagram approach is proposed for ecological risk‐based decisions about pesticide usage. Aside from technical data, pesticide risk management relies on ...
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IEAM Special Series on “New Challenges in Ecological Risk Assessment” Foreword
The manuscript is the Foreword of the Special Series on “New Challenges in ERA”, of which I am Guest Editor, highlighting the need for a substantial improvement for the future of ERA. It explains the reasons in support of the scientific interest of the Special Series and describes very shortly the main topics treated in the different papers. Integr Environ Assess Manag © 2013 SETAC ...
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Ecosystem services as assessment endpoints for ecological risk assessment
Ecosystem services are defined as the outputs of ecological processes that contribute to human welfare or have the potential to do so in the future. Those outputs include food and drinking water, clean air and water, and pollinated crops. The need to protect the services provided by natural systems has been recognized previously, but ecosystem services have not been formally incorporated into ...
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Methodology for conducting screening-level ecological risk assessments for hazardous waste sites. Part II: grouping ecological components
Screening-level ecological risk assessments are commonly conducted to identify those contaminants and receptors on which to focus future phases or tiers of the ecological risk assessment process. Most screening assessments are performed using a suite of individual species subjected to intensive evaluation of exposure (endpoint species) and selected for their appropriateness for serving as ...
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The Sediment Quality Triad: then, now and tomorrow
The past, present and future status of the Sediment Quality Triad (SQT) concept is reviewed. The SQT has developed since its inception; some early data interpretation methods remain useful and have been improved (e.g. normalising to reference data), others have not proven to be as useful as originally anticipated (e.g. a single index coupled with triangular graphical plots). SQT studies have ...
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Regional-scale monitoring of coastal contamination. Nutrients and heavy metals in estuarine sediments and organisms on the coast of Galicia (northwest Spain)
We determined background levels of heavy metals in sediments and biota of estuarine environments and nutrient reference levels in sediments of the Galician coast. This region is characterised by having ria-type estuaries. The determination of these levels, which were affected by the geological heterogeneity of the area, was the basis that let us evaluate the contamination status of this coast. ...
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