Environmental Risk Assessment

Along with health risk assessments, environmental risk assessments form the basis for evaluating environmental contamination in various media.  The results of these ecological risk assessments lead to the development of cost-effective and protective environmental remediation solutions.  CEC scientists have been heavily involved in developing ecological risk approaches for assessing a wide range of environmental problems ranging from a small scale (e.g., waste sites) to a large scale (e.g., global warming).

Environmental Risk Assessment Projects:

Pioneering Ecological Risk Approaches

Ecological assessments were developed which formed the primary basis for cleanup of the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge in Illinois.  In one of the very first ecological assessments of its kind, the cleanup of PCBs and heavy metals were based upon the protection of burrowing animals.  Ecological risk procedures developed for the Crab Orchard site have subsequently been used across the nation.

Comparative Ecological Risk Assessments

In a comparative risk analysis of environmental problems for U.S. EPA and the Great Lakes National Program Office, ecological risk assessments were developed for 26 leading environmental problems present in the mid-western states and the in Great Lakes.  These techniques helped identify and rank environmental problems relative to ecological impacts.  Habitat destruction, global climate change, and invasive species were ranked as the leading ecological threats. Federal and state risk management decisions were made to focus more resources on these leading threats.