HARVEST :: Browsing by Author "Zhang, Xiaowei"

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Bridging the Gap: Advancing Ecological Risk Assessment from Laboratory Predictions to Ecosystem Reality
(ACS Publications, 2024-10-07) 廖, 伟; Hou, Lin; Liu, Na; Xu, Jian; Zhang, Xiaowei; Hollert, Henner; Johnson, Andrew; Giesy, John; Wu, Fengchang
The evolution of ecological risk assessment (ERA) for contaminants has been a topic that has continued to evolve over the past 30 years, but it is important to ask ourselves whether it remains up to date. Initially, the process focused on sub-individual end points; ERA has since expanded to encompass landscape-level analyses. After focusing entirely on single substances, we now recognize the reality of exposure to contaminant mixtures. Assessment techniques have progressed from a simplistic risk quotient method to more sophisticated probabilistic approaches as the library of chemical monitoring and toxicity test data has expanded. The probabilistic approaches, where they can be applied, have reduced uncertainty, yet the link to real outcomes in the field is rarely established.