Summary Report on Issues in Ecological Risk Assessment

In 1986, EPA published a series of guidelines for carrying out human health risk assessments. As part of the ongoing effort to develop guidance in areas not addressed by the 1986 guidelines, EPA's Risk Assessment Forum sponsored a series of meetings to consider issues relevant to developing the first Agency-wide guidelines for ecological risk assessment. This report summarizes the discussion and conclusions of seven information-gathering meetings held in the spring of 1990. Invited speakers and EPA staff addressed the scope and content of future ecological guidelines, the nature and diversity of ecological assessments, approaches to characterizing and quantifying uncertainty in ecological hazard and exposure assessments, and the potential use of population modeling for characterizing ecological risk. Relying in part upon the results of these discussions, EPA has embarked on a multiyear effort to develop ecological risk assessment guidelines that will foster consistency in the Agency's approach to evaluating not only the risks posed by conventional stresses such as toxic chemicals, but also other anthropogenic stresses such as habitat loss and global climate change.
[Note: This summary report was used in developing EPA's 1992 Framework for Ecological Risk Assessment, which served as the foundation for EPA's 1998 Ecological Risk Assessment Guidelines.]

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