Current issues in statistics and models for Ecotoxicological Risk Assessment.

Nelly van der Hoeven

ECOSTAT
Vondellaan 23
2332 AA Leiden
The Netherlands
NvdH @iecostat.nl
  and
Leiden University, IEES,
Department of Theoretical Evolutionary Biology,
P.O. Box 9516,
2300 RA Leiden,
The Netherlands


Abstract

A review is given on statistical and modelling issues in ecotoxicology. The issues discussed are:

  1. How to estimate an (almost) no effect concentration in the laboratory
  2. Combining single-species acceptable effect levels to an acceptable effect level for a multi-species ecosystem.
  3. The combined effect of exposure to several chemicals.
  4. Bioavailability in the natural environment and food-web models.
Most current procedures in setting standards allow the environmental concentration to be above the acceptable effect concentration for a small fraction of the species. It is shown that a considerable part of the fraction of the affected species will suffer a severe effect.

Keywords: bioaccumulation; bioavailability; combination toxicology; ECx; equilibrium partition; food-web models; hazardous concentration; NOEC; Species Sensitivity Distribution; Toxic Units

logo ECOSTAT Acta Biotheoretica 52: 201-217, 2004