Ecological Risk Assessment and Natural Resource Damage Assessment: Synthesis of Assessment Procedures

Abstract

The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) convened an invited workshop (August 2008) to address coordination between ecological risk assessment (ERA) and natural resource damage assessment (NRDA). Although ERA and NRDA activities are performed under a number of statutory and regulatory authorities, the primary focus of the workshop was on ERA and NRDA as currently practiced in the United States under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). This paper presents the findings and conclusions of the Synthesis Work Group, 1 of 3 work groups convened at the workshop. The Synthesis Work Group concluded that the different programmatic objectives and legal requirements of the 2 processes preclude development of a single, integrated ERA/NRDA process. However, although institutional and programmatic impediments exist to integration of the 2 processes, parties are capitalizing on opportunities to coordinate technical and scientific elements of the assessments at a number of locations. Although it is important to recognize and preserve the distinctions between ERA and NRDA, opportunities for data sharing exist, particularly for the characterization of environmental exposures and derivation of ecotoxicological information. Thus, effective coordination is not precluded by the underlying science. Rather, willing participants, accommodating schedules, and recognition of potential efficiencies associated with shared data collection can lead to enhanced coordination and consistency between ERA and NRDA.

Residue‐based mercury dose–response in fish: An analysis using lethality‐equivalent test endpoints

“…Practitioners from both fields representing government, industry, and academia have argued strongly for greater integration of methods used to assess ecological risk and injury [33,34]. For example, a variety of numerical models for estimating Hg tissue concentrations in upper trophic level fish are available to the ecological risk assessment and injury assessment communities [35][36][37].…”

The influence of global climate change on the scientific foundations and applications of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry: Introduction to a SETAC international workshop

“…Assessments of damage to natural resources share some characteristics with ecological risk assessments, particularly in the use of data on exposure and effects that can be influenced directly and/or indirectly by GCC 29, 67. Extensive data are used to characterize the spatial and temporal nature of damage to natural resources, incorporating past damage or harm since the initiation of contamination as well as projecting future losses of the resources until ecological restoration are complete.…”

“…For this workshop, these three subcategories represented the technical inputs that are integrated into applications such as risk- and injury-assessment paradigms 27, 28 and ultimately used to inform risk-management decisions. These same inputs are used not only in assessing injury to natural resources but also to help determine what actions may be needed to restore those harmed resources 29, 30. Similarly, managers of river basins in the European Union are required to consider both the sensitivity of aquatic ecosystems and the resilience of restoration measures to potential GCC impacts in their management plans for the future 31.…”

Ecology and economics of fish kills: mortality and recovery of brown trout (<em>Salmo trutta</em> L.) and Atlantic salmon (<em>Salmo salar</em> L.) in an Irish river

“…The literature on economic assessment of ecological loss is substantial and covers a variety of approaches, drawing in the range of ecological goods and services provided by the impacted habitat and lost, in whole or part, as a consequence of an adverse event (Dunford et al 2004;Lipton et al 2008;Gala et al 2009;Shaw and Wlodarz 2013). This paper is not intended to cover the range of economics-based analyses available to examine ecological loss.…”