Ecological Risk Assessment

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Methodology for Business-Ecological Risk Assessment. Husain Kalimuddin American University of Kuwait Abstract A Business-Ecological Risk Assessment is the process for analyzing and evaluating the possibility of adverse ecological effects caused by environmental pollutants released by the business activities. This paper describes a method suggested by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to conduct the ecological risk assessment in a systematic manner. 1. Introduction An ecological risk assessment is the process for evaluating how likely it is that the environment may be impacted as a result of exposure to one or more environmental stressors such as chemicals, land change, disease, invasive species and climate change. (Source 1)…show more content…
Similarly, even a business-ecological risk assessment starts with planning. This stage is required to decide the purpose, scope and the technical approaches to be implemented in the assessment. This stage mostly involves a dialogue between a risk assessor and risk manager. Risk assessor is an individual or team with the appropriate training and range of expertise necessary to conduct a risk assessment and a risk manager is an individual, team, or organization with responsibility for or authority to take action in response to an identified risk. (Source 2) The planning stage starts with discussion about the casualties of the risk such as human Beings, animals, plants, or even places. The risk could harm individual or general population at certain life stages such as juveniles or adults. It could also impact population subgroups based on genetics and/or based on geographic areas. Even an entire species could be affected by the risk. Environmental hazard of concern is then brought up for discussion. The concern is determined such as Chemicals (single or multiple/cumulative risk), Radiation, Physical (changes to a habitat), Microbiological or biological (disease or invasive species), Nutritional (for example, fitness or metabolic…show more content…
If an ecological relevance is determined; its linked to Nature and intensity of effects, Spatial and temporal scales of effects, Potential for recovery, Level of organization potentially affected, and The entity's role in the ecosystem. A major challenge faced by the ecological risk assessments is that it is rarely clear which of these ecosystem components are most critical to ecosystem function. Further, professionals and the public don't always agree on which are most valuable to consider. This increases the challenge in choosing which ecological characteristics to protect. Three principal criteria to clarify this choice are Ecological relevance, Susceptibility to known or potential stressors, and Relevance to management

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