Ecological Risk Assessment

A great deal of environmental toxicology is performed with the eventual goal of performing a risk assessment. A great deal of the research performed in the field is geared toward the determination of the risk of producing a new product or releasing a pesticide or effluent to the environment. The probability of an effect on one or more specific endpoints due to a specific stressor or stressors. A stressor is a substance, circumstance, or energy field that causes impacts, either positive or negative, on a biological system. Stressors could be as wide ranging as chemical effects, ionizing radiation, or rapid changes in temperature. Two basic frameworks for ecological risk assessment have been proposed over the past 10 years. The original framework was updated to specifically apply to estimating the risks of stressors to ecological systems. The ecological risk-assessment framework attempts to incorporate refinements to original ideas of risk assessment and apply them to the general case of ecological risk assessment.