Ecological and Human Health Risk Assessment

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONThis literature review of the risk assessment process addresses both ecological and human receptors. The review covers the risk assessment literature including methodology, analysis, interpretation, uncertainty, and regulatory guidance.Companion reviews in this volume that address the effect of pollutants and their fate and transport processes in the aquatic environment overlap the discipline of risk assessment and, therefore, the reader is urged to review these sections as they will not be covered in this review. The focus of the review is on the risk assessment process as it is applied to sediment and water quality, site remediation, and natural resources. ECOLOGICAL Problem FormulationMoore (2001) applied the Anna Karenina principle, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" to ecological risk assessments of multiple stressors. Moore states that there are few pathways to success and many ways to ruin an ecological risk assessment, and all successful assessments must achieve the following: (1) societal and political buy-in, (2) consideration of a broad range of stressors and management options, (3) focusing, models and data to characterize risk, and tools for characterizing uncertainty, (4) adoption of an adaptive management strategy, where system responses are observed, assessed and revised as necessary.As our environmental and regulatory focus shifts from managing point sources to large Literature Review 2002 23 methodology for deriving the RBC for vinyl chloride. Unlike typical RBCs, individual RBCs were derived for childhood and adult exposures to vinyl chloride due to age-based cancer slope factors that are known for vinyl chloride.References Abdel-Megeed, M.A.; Suh, D.H.; and Abdel-Rahman, M.S. (2001) Intra-species Extrapolation in Risk Assessment of Different Classes of Antimicrobials. Hum. Ecol. Risk Assess., 7, 15. Anderson, B.S.; Hunt, J.W.; Phillips, B.M.; Fairey, R.; Roberts, C.A.; Oakden, J.M.; Puckett, H.M.; Stephenson, M.; Tjeerdema, R.S.; Long. E.R.; Wilson, C.Boring, C.S.; Brisbin, I.L. Jr.; Snodgrass, J.; Peles, J.D.; Bryan, A.L.; Smith, M.H.; and Gochfeld, M. (2001b) Radiocesium in Fish from the Savannah River and Steel Creek: Potential Food Chain Exposure to the Public.

Influence of Sample Sizes on Analyzing Community Parameters of Periphytic Diatoms for Bioassessment Using an Artificial Substrate in Coastal Waters

“…Periphytic diatoms comprise a large number of species with various ecological preferences. Because of their position in the food webs and their short life cycle, their quick responses to environmental changes, and their easy sampling (allowing for standardization for temporal and spatial comparisons), periphytic diatoms have widely been accepted as a robust indicator to evaluate environmental stress and anthropogenic effects in ecological investigations and monitoring researches (Lange-Bertalot, 1979;Steinberg and Schiefele, 1988;Van Dam et al, 1994;Andren, 1999;Duong et al, 2007;Morin et al, 2010;Biksey et al, 2011;Grinham et al, 2011;Mearns et al, 2011).…”

Arsenic Distribution and Adsorption Behavior in the Sediments of the Daliao River System in China

“…Its introduction to water by natural processes and human activities is of potential concern. Contamination of ground and surface water by As from soil and aquifers poses a significant threat to human health (Förstner and Wittmann, 1981;Biksey et al, 2011). Therefore, it is important to fully understand the fate and transport characteristics of As in sediment or aquifers.…”

Can Nonloricate Ciliate Assemblages be a Surrogate to Analyze Taxonomic Relatedness Pattern of Ciliated Protozoan Communities for Marine Bioassessment? A Case Study in Jiaozhou Bay, Northern China

“…Ciliated protozoa are an important contributor to the microplankton communities in functioning of the microbial food web by mediating the flux of elements and energy from bacteria or microalgae to higher trophic levels Xu et al, 2011aXu et al, , 2011b. With short generation times and delicate external pellicles, rapid responses to environmental stress, anthropogenic impact greater than many other eukaryotic organisms, and high tolerance to extreme biotopes, protozoa have been widely used to evaluate water quality in many aquatic ecosystems (Biksey et al, 2011;Jiang et al, 2007;Mearns et al, 2011;Xu et al, 2002;. Many previous investigations have shown that ciliated protozoa may be used as robust indicators for environmental bioassessment, in particular, monitoring water quality in marine ecosystems Tan et al, 2010;Xu et al, 2002;.…”