Site-Specific Environmental Risk Assessment

Site-specific environmental risk assessments estimate the kind, likelihood, and magnitude of the environmental effects associated with a particular stress, e.g., an anthropogenic activity, on one or several interconnected ecosystems within a defined geographical area. There are many options and alternatives to be considered when conducting a site-specific assessment, which should be defined in the problem formulation. The main elements to be considered include the regulatory or nonregulatory nature of the assessment; the identification of the stress source(s) and the limits and coverage of the studied ecosystem(s); the overall aim of the assessment, e.g., predictive, diagnostic, or restorative; and the expected outcome, e.g., just the identification/confirmation of risk or also the selection/implementation of risk control and management measures.