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Recommendations for a Science-Based Program of
Ecological Risk Assessment and
Environmental Protection
STANLEY I. AUERBACH
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
ALAN W. MAKI
Exxon Company, USA
Threats to the life-support systems of the planet Earth need to become
the concern of the social and political systems of every nation. These
threats result from many deliberate and inadvertent activities of human
beings in every society. While there is growing international recognition
of environmental problems, preventive and corrective actions and policies
have not been put forth quickly for a number of reasons. These reasons
include ignorance, differing priorities among social groups within the same
society, political or social apathy, lack of financial resources, and lack of
qualified personnel. In this book we have tried to meld the ecological
perspectives and ideals of two differing societies in the hope of identifying
common goals and general procedures by which to improve the assessment
and management of ecological risks.
Some readers may not be aware of the official policies on matters of
environment in the East European countries. All of the participants in
these U.S.-Polish workshops were surprised to learn how similar the official
policies of East European countries were to those of the United States and
other western countries. For this reason, we recommend Chapter 20 where
ltojan has summarized the official policies of East European countries in
a way that provides a useful frame of reference for the recommendations
that have been developed in this chapter and some of the other chapters
of this boot
These official policies reflect a combination of political, economic, and
social ideals which may affect the degree and intensity of implementation of
action programs. We hope the recommendations for research discussed in
this book will be consistent with governmental policies. Both publicly and
privately supported research is needed on the concepts of ecological risk
assessment and the management procedures that are necessary to develop
389
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390
ECOLOGICAL RISKS
MONITORING PROGRAMS
FIELD DATA
TRENDS ANALYSIS
F__________q
1
I
ECOLOGICAL RISK
ASSESSMENT
SCOPE OF PROBLEM
I DEVELOPMENt OF
| SCIENCE BASED POLICY
ECODEVELOPMENT
ENVIRONI IIENTAL MATS
TO ECONOMIC D~ELO~
PUBLIC |
EDUCATED |
IMPLEMENTATION ~
OF ENVIRONMENTAL ~ _
CONTROL TECHNOLOGY ~ RE-ASSFS4;UENT OF NEEDS
_ FOR ~IRONM~AL
MONITORING
RESTORATION AND
RECOVERY OF IMPACTED
AREAS
FIGURE 1 Conceptual framework for a research-based environmental policy and restora-
tion program for pollution-impacted ecosystems.
comprehensive programs to assess ecosystem exposures, quantify ecological
impacts, and develop policies for management of ecological risks.
Figure 1 provides a conceptual framework for a research-based envi-
ronmental policy and restoration program for pollution-impacted ecosys-
tems. It begins with the enhancement of ecological awareness and ends
ideally with the prevention, protection, restoration, and/or recovery of im-
pacted ecosystems. Thus, we believe it is a blueprint for development of
enlightened environmental policy not only in Poland and the United States
but in many other countries of the world.
Figure 1 also underscores the fact that carefully designed environmen-
tal monitoring programs are essential for the identification and quantifica-
tion of ecological trends, such as changing forest productivity or buildup
of heavy metals in river sediments. With such data in hand, the scope
of existing or potential problems can be identified and the magnitude of
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RECOMMENDATIONS
391
environmental risks can be assessed. Environmental scientists, leaders in
industry, and regulatory officials can use the results of these assessments
to develop science-based recommendations for voluntary and/or regulatory
actions to prevent, decrease, or ameliorate key environmental problems.
Public education and recognition of environmental limits to economic de-
velopment are essential no matter which preventive or ameliorative actions
may be required. This education ideally should include all segments of
society, from school children to leaders in industry, regulatory agencies,
and the public at large. All groups must recognize that the capacity of
the environment to assimilate wastes is not infinite, and that breakdown
of ecological structure and function will occur if the limits of ecosystem
resiliency are not understood and respected.
Most detrimental impacts of changes in air or water quality can be
ameliorated by control technologies which can lead to the eventual restora-
tion and recovery of impacted ecosystems. Clearly, continued economic
development will require regular reassessment of needs for environmental
monitoring. Data from such long-term monitoring can then be used to feed
back to the beginning of the sequence for reanalysis of trends and reassess-
ment of incremental environmental risks resulting from altered plans for
industrial, residential, commercial, or recreational development (Figure 1~.
SYNTHESIS AND INTEGRATION
Air Pollution Impacts Monitoring and lYends Analysis
Very large parts of the environmental research programs in both the
United States and Poland are devoted to the development of monitoring
data for air, water quality, and ecological trends. Indeed, the majority
of data discussed during the workshops regarding terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystems was the direct result of ongoing monitoring programs. Moni-
toring is an essential first step in ecological risk assessment.
One of the projects recommended for future collaboration between
the United States and Poland is a cooperative research activity aimed at
characterizing effects on forest ecosystems from air pollution and other
future environmental stresses. An important outgrowth of the first NAS-
PAN workshop was a follow-up planning meeting for a joint U.S./Polish
program subtitled "Long-term Ecological Monitoring of Forests." A group
of American and Polish forest scientists met in Poland in 1988 and made
the following recommendations:
· All ecosystem parameters are characterized by natural trends and
variability; we must be able to recognize if observed variability exceeds the
range of normal variability.
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ECOLOGICAL RISKS
· Long-term measurements are needed long-term being defined as
more than 30 years.
· Measurements of greatest potential are those that enable pre-visual
detection of change and integration of the effects of several stress factors.
· Monitoring should not be static. The linkages between research on
field monitoring and mathematical modeling of ecosystem processes must
be interactive. Monitoring programs must be designed to include changes
in methods that research identifies as being useful to meet the monitoring
objectives.
· Because of the diversity of ecological responses to environmental
stresses, decisions should be made early in a monitoring program as to
what constitutes a significant change. Just because something is detectable
does not mean that it is important. On the other hand, many changes in
an ecosystem that ultimately are important may be subtle and difficult to
detect.
· The monitoring approach must identify those ecosystem values
that are important and develop indicator measurements that can be used
to assess changes in those values.
· The first goal of the proposed monitoring system should be to eval-
uate changes caused by air pollution. Later, however, other environmental
stress factors should be included.
· A pilot monitoring project focusing on the United States and
Poland should be implemented with collaboration also in other European
countries. Emphasis should be on intensity of effort rather than extent. If
all parameters can not be monitored, an attempt should be made to include
as many integrative factors as possible.
Issues of environmental protection should be viewed ~ a complex way
through a systems-analysis approach that encompasses all interdependencies
among social needs, economic activity, and environmental conditions. For
ease of analysis as well as tractability, subsystems should serge as the scale
of analysis. One of the most significant subsystems is energy supply and
its environmental effects. As noted in Chapter 23, within the selected
subsystem of energy and environment interactions there are a number of
areas requiring further research. These include:
.
improvement and verification of air pollution dispersion models;
· construction and improvement of models of pollutant circulation
in biogeochemical cycles; and
· estimation of damage to the environment caused by emission of
specific pollutants a process which should consider all existing interde-
pendencies of various pollutants.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
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Ecological Risk Assessment
Once environmental monitoring data have been developed for pol-
lutants and ecosystems of interest, decisions regarding significance of the
observed trends and concentrations of pollutants must be made. All too
frequently, monitoring data are developed at considerable expense with no
clear concept of how the data are to be used and, more importantly, how
the significance of the observed values will be determined.
In its simplest form, risk assessment involves comparisons between
known or estimated concentrations of particular pollutants and measure-
ments of ecological effects or toxicological data for indicator species. This
comparison selves as the basis for definition of "concentrations of concern"
and for deciding whether environmental or human-health risks are accept-
able or unacceptable. When monitoring shows that concentrations of a
particular pollutant In the environment exceed known toxic concentrations,
an appropriate control strategy is needed to limit discharge of this material
into the environment. Conversely, when biological effects are known to
occur only at concentrations in excess of those monitored in the environ-
ment, concerns are minimized. Thus, a procedure for regular comparison
of environmental monitoring data with biological effects data yields an
objective data base with which to prioritize environmental problems and
manage ecological risks, i.e., a science-based policy.
Development of Science-Based Policy
In a very real sense, essentially all regulatory initiatives and much
current environmental decision making have a basis in the nsk-assessment
approach, i.e., comparison of environmental-fate and environmental-effects
information. Air and water qualifier standards are developed to protect
human health and the environment. These standards recognize the im-
portance of relating the known biological effects of particular pollutants
to real-world exposures. Similarly, criteria for toxic pollutants are devel-
oped from comparisons and predictions of biological effects with resultant
workplace or other environmental exposures.
Much current land-use planning and assessment of potential impacts
from industrial development also involve comparisons of ecological effects
with predicted impacts of the proposed activity. For example, the National
Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) in the United States requires that an
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be assembled for new developments
which may have substantial impacts on the environment. The EIS describes
the biological structure and function of the existing ecosystem as a baseline
and then predicts how this baseline is expected to be altered by the proposed
development in a risk assessment context. Decisions on the acceptability of
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ECOLOGIC ~5M
a proposed project, suggested alternatives, and mitigative measures are all
made based on the severity of changes from the baseline functions of the
ecosystem. Thus, scientific information gathered from carefully designed
and conducted field and laboratory programs provides the foundation for
current decision making and the development of future environmental
. .
pot .~.
Ecodevelopment: Environmental Limits to Economic Development
In Chapter 4, Marek and KAssenberg discuss the concept of ecodevel-
opment, recogmzing that ecological factors can place finite limits on the
extent of economic development. This concept recognizes that humans
have had an impact on the environment as a result of day-to-day activities
since before-recorded history. As human populations have increased and
associated economic development has proceeded, impacts have become pro-
gressively more severe. Contemporary ecological stresses are demonstrated
by chronically degraded air and water quality, as well as the breakdown of
ecological structure and function in areas that are most severely impacted.
In these heavily impacted areas of Poland and the United States, we have
come to realize that the capacity of the environment to assimilate wastes is
not infinite, and that degradation of environmental values is the inevitable
result of over-stressed ecosystems.
Guidelines for Sustainable Agricultural Development
In Chapter 15, Ryszkowski proposes a series of guidelines for sustain-
able development related to sound ecological management of agricultural
areas:
· Relate the structure and magnitude of agricultural production to
the natural environment.
· Introduce new technologies to ensure that agricultural enterprises
internalize the costs of restoring impacted ecosystems.
· Introduce landscape-level planning to ensure that ecological struc-
ture and function are maintained in areas under increasing pressures to
intensify agricultural production.
Public Education
There is a continuing need for environmental scientists to present the
results of their research with clear and concise conclusions for leaders in
industry and government and the public at large. Ambiguous and inconclu-
sive data, or data from poorly designed programs, should be avoided they
serge only to obscure public understanding of complex ecological issues. In
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RECOMMENDATIONS
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Chapter 20, Trojan points to the "collision of interests" between industrial
development and environmental concerns. He cites the need for enhanced
education programs to produce good researchers and to keep the public
fully informed of environmental consequences of planned activities.
IMPLEMENTATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL
TECHNOLOGY
In closing this summary chapter, we refer again to the "Conceptual
Framework for a Research-Based Environmental Policy and Restoration
Program for Pollution Impacted Ecosystems" shown in Figure 1. In the
course of this chapter, we have progressed from trends analysis and risk
assessment to development of science-based policy and public education.
The key to success in the assessment and management of ecological risk is
acceptance and implementation of environmental control technologies that
bring about ecological improvements and permit sustained development
with minimal further degradation of the environment.
Clearly, the control technologies needed to achieve many contemporary
environmental goals are already available. Equally clear are the high costs
of implementation. Although the costs of not implementing necessary
environmental management are less widely recognized, they are no less
real. The ecological situation in many areas of the United States and
Poland are critical; both environmental concerns and human health are
at serious risk in the most heavily developed areas of both countries. If
economic development and the qualifier of life in our societies are to be
improved, then the costs of environmental control technologies such as
wastewater treatment, clean-coal technologies, use of air scrubbers and
precipitators, and more ecologically sound methods for agriculture and
forest management must be factored into development decisions.
We believe that Figure 1 contains the keys to success in the assessment
and management of ecological risks, not only in the United States and
Poland but in many other countries of the world as well.
REFERENCES
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Noble, J.L" Martin, and K.F. Jensen, eds. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service—Northeastern Forest Experiment Station.
Barnthouse, L^W., and G. W. Suter II, eds. 1986. Users manual for ecological risk assessment.
Oak Ridge National Laboratoly Report ORNL4251, Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Clarke, R., ed. 1986. The handbook of ecological monitoring. New York: Clarendon Press.
Cohrssen, JJ., and V.T. Covello. 1989. Risk analysis: A guide to principles and methods
for analyzing health and environmental risks. Council on Environmental Quality NTIS
~PB89-137772. U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, Va.
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ECOLOGICAL RISKS
National Research Council. 1983. Risk assessment in the federal government: Managing
the process. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Ruckelshaus, W.D. 1983. Science, risk, and public polipy. Science 221:10261028.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
ecological risk
