Predicting environmental risk: A road map for the future

ABSTRACT Frameworks for environmental risk assessment (ERA) focus on comparing results from separate exposure and effect assessments. Exposure assessment generally relies on mechanistic fate models, whereas the effects assessment is anchored in standard test protocols and descriptive statistics. This discrepancy prevents a useful link between these two pillars of ERA, and jeopardizes the realism and efficacy of the entire process. Similar to exposure assessment, effects assessment requires a mechanistic approach to translate the output of fate models into predictions for impacts on populations and food webs. The aim of this study was to discuss (1) the central importance of the individual level, (2) different strategies of dealing with biological complexity, and (3) the role that toxicokinetic–toxicodynamic (TKTD) models, energy budgets, and molecular biology play in a mechanistic revision of the ERA framework. Consequently, an outline for a risk assessment paradigm was developed that incorporates a mechanistic effects assessment in a consistent manner, and a “roadmap for the future.” Such a roadmap may play a critical role to eventually arrive at a more scientific and efficient ERA process, and needs to be used to shape our long-term research agendas.

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