Potential application of ecological models in the European environmental risk assessment of chemicals I: Review of protection goals in EU directives and regulations
Abstract:Several European directives and regulations address the environmental risk assessment of chemicals. We used the protection of freshwater ecosystems against plant protection products, biocidal products, human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals and priority substances under the Water Framework Directive as examples to explore the potential of ecological effect models for a refined risk assessment. Our analysis of the directives, regulations, and related guidance documents lead us to distinguish … Show more
“…For the majority of key drivers, SPGs can be defined at the level of the population or higher which is in accordance with US-EPA (2003), Delorme et al (2005), and Hommen et al (2010), which state that most ecological protection goals aim to preserve populations of non-target organisms rather than individuals. In these reports, however, the ecosystem services concept was not explicitly used to derive SPGs.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 93%
“…Directive 98/8/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of 16 February, 1998, Regulation (EC), 2006, Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May, 1992and Directive, 2000, see also Hommen et al (2010) for a review). In Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009, a high level of protection is required (e.g.…”
“…For the majority of key drivers, SPGs can be defined at the level of the population or higher which is in accordance with US-EPA (2003), Delorme et al (2005), and Hommen et al (2010), which state that most ecological protection goals aim to preserve populations of non-target organisms rather than individuals. In these reports, however, the ecosystem services concept was not explicitly used to derive SPGs.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 93%
“…Directive 98/8/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of 16 February, 1998, Regulation (EC), 2006, Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May, 1992and Directive, 2000, see also Hommen et al (2010) for a review). In Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009, a high level of protection is required (e.g.…”
“…EFSA answer: Rubach et al (2011) are cited for the definition of population sustainability in a population context. The references should be Hommen et al, 2010;EFSA PPR, 2010. Line 1759 onward Table 1 specifically mentions that laboratory test "Cannot assess external recovery". This is incorrect in regulation 283/2013 it is actually a requirement when refining the non-target arthropod risk assessment for PPPs.…”
Section: Surface Waters In Agricultural Landscapesmentioning
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) carried out a public consultation to receive input from the scientific community and all interested parties on the draft scientific opinion on recovery in environmental risk assessments (ERAs) at EFSA. This draft opinion gathered scientific knowledge on recovery for further development of ERAs and developed a conceptual framework which includes an integrative approach based on well-defined specific protection goals, scientific knowledge derived by means of experimentation, modelling and monitoring, and the selection of focal taxa, communities, processes and landscapes. This draft opinion was prepared by a dedicated working group of the Scientific Committee and endorsed by the Scientific Committee for public consultation at its plenary meeting on 9 June 2015. The consultation was carried out via the web from 22 June 2015 and the draft opinion was published online with an invitation for submission of written comments by 10 September 2015. EFSA received 84 comments from 13 interested parties. The current report presents statistics on the comments received and lists all comments together with detailed answers to them. The submitted comments were considered valuable and were taken into account by the working group when updating the draft scientific opinion on recovery in ERAs at EFSA. EFSA and its Scientific Committee wish to thank all stakeholders for their contributions. The finalised opinion was discussed
“…Anyway, it is questionable if most commonly used endpoints are suitable for covering this objective. Current procedures required by chemical regulations only achieve a small part of these goals [29]. We must be aware that the complexity of the problem is two-fold:…”
Section: The Need For More Ecologically-based Approachesmentioning
Abstract:The usual procedures for ecological risk assessment (ERA) have been based for decades on simplified approaches in order to provide basic information on the huge amount of chemicals introduced into the environment. These approaches allowed the development of international regulatory tools capable of substantially reducing the adverse effects on ecosystems in developed countries. Nevertheless, these approaches suffer from a lack of ecological realism and are poorly suitable for understanding the actual consequences for ecosystem health. The need for more ecologically-based approaches is now recognized by the scientific community and has been highlighted by a recent document of the European Commission. In this paper, a synthesis is presented of the most important issues and the need for research to improve the ecological realism of exposure and effect assessment and the tools that should be developed to reach this objective. In particular, the major challenges are the following: the effects of variable exposure patterns; the vulnerability of ecosystems; the indirect ecological effects; the responses to multiple stress factors; the improvement of ecological modeling. The possibilities for using new scientific achievements in regulatory ERA are also discussed.
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