Knowra Environmental risk assessment Environmental risk assessment Environmental risk assessment systematically evaluates how likely hazards or human activities are to harm ecosystems or environmental resources, and how severe those effects could be.
Hazard identification : The process of identifying agents or activities capable of causing harm. Assessment begins by specifying what could damage ecosystems or environmental resources.
Ecological receptor : An organism, population, community, or ecosystem that may be exposed to a stressor. Risk estimates depend on which organisms or ecological entities are considered vulnerable.
Ecological risk assessment : The evaluation of risks that stressors pose to organisms, populations, communities, or ecosystems. It is the ecological branch of environmental assessment, focused on effects beyond human health.
Environmental hazard : A substance, activity, or condition with the capacity to cause environmental harm. A hazard can exist without exposure; assessment also asks whether harm is likely to occur.
Exposure assessment : The estimation of how, how much, and how long people or ecological receptors contact a hazard. It estimates which organisms or resources encounter the identified hazard, and at what levels.
Environmental stressor : A physical, chemical, or biological factor capable of causing adverse environmental change. Stressors define the hazards whose potential effects the assessment evaluates.
Human health risk assessment : The estimation of potential adverse health effects from exposure to hazards. It shares assessment methods but centers on human health rather than ecological resources.
Risk characterization ratio : A ratio comparing an estimated exposure or concentration with a benchmark associated with adverse effects. This screening metric expresses potential concern but is not itself a complete risk conclusion.
Dose–response relationship : A relationship describing how the magnitude or probability of an effect changes with exposure or dose. It links estimated environmental exposure to the likelihood or severity of ecological effects.
Environmental fate : The movement, transformation, and persistence of a substance in environmental media. Fate determines where a contaminant travels and how long exposure may continue.
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