The chesapeake bay program: An example of ecological risk assessment

Abstract

SYNOPSIS. Ecological risk assessment grew from earlier efforts of federal agencies to protect human health from chemical releases. Over the past several years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) adapted the human health paradigm for use in protecting ecological end-points, including ecosystems such as the Chesapeake Bay. The Bay restoration effort may be seen as an ecological risk assessment in the sense that the program participants followed the paradigm developed by U.S. EPA. This analysis of the program and risk assessment process provides an additional perspective on the success and efficacy of the Bay restoration efforts. Early efforts to determine the problems in the Bay system targeted hypoxia, habitat deterioration and natural resource degradation for corrective actions. Additional monitoring and data gathering refined and focused program efforts on hypoxia caused by nutrient enrichment. Thus far, the ecological risk paradigm has been effectively applied to the Bay clean-up in a general sense. Recent research demonstrates that detailed application of a narrow risk approach will likely fail to include important biological effects or processes.