ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses development of a process for site Physical Stressor Assessment in ecological risk assessment (ERA). Having toxicity assessment as a fixed step in the ERA process secures that chemicals released to the environment garner their necessary attention. Notably, however, and going back as far as the earliest of ERA guidance documents, there is an expressed intent to evaluate all of a site's environmental stressors for their contributing capacities to impinge on site biota health. For one thing, where applicable, the influences of radionuclide releases at sites have been included in ERA work. Seasoned ERA practitioners should reflect on their past site-specific engagements to arrive at a loose figure for the number of sites where they have seen physical site stressors discussed where it was appropriate to do so. Physical site alteration at the hands of man can be long-standing, defined here perhaps as being five or more decades old.
