Nature conservation and development is often planned on contaminated soils and deserted land. Such situations call for ecological risk assessment. Alterra- part of Wageningen UR - researchers specialized in ecotoxicology have developed a methodology enabling ecological risk assessment to support decisions about nature design and management. The method assesses the ecological vulnerability in food chains, food webs and ecotopes. It was tested for six chemicals: copper, zinc, cadmium, DDT, chlorpyrifos and ivermectin. These chemicals represent a wide variety of toxic impact mechanisms and effects. The analysis can be performed for any assemblage of species and enables aquatic and terrestrial species to be compared.
This study enables a new way of ecological risk assessment by comparing the feasibility of different scenarios for wild life on contaminated soils. For any common type of contamination the most favorable option for nature development is determined. Alterra expertise to enable this was built up during many years of field research data. Additionally, the ecotoxicologist perspective adds value to the traditional laboratory research by studying the animals in their natural environment. Nature conservation and development is often planned on contaminated soils and deserted land.
The method was developed in commission of the EU, in the integrated project NoMiracle, part of the European Environmental Action Plan. This research project was started in 2004 and will be active for five years, participated by a consortium of over 35 universities, research institutes and companies. NoMiracle aims to develop new methods for ecological risk assessment of environmental contamination and other stressors. The Alterra researchers used ecological trait data for individual species to assess vulnerability in different food chains. The report suggests the use of vulnerability mapping at ecotope level and discusses criteria for adequate use of existing databases to visualize vulnerability in ecosystem receptors.
Decision Support System for nature managers
Alterra will dedicate the new method as a basis for a Decision Support System for nature managers and designers. Future users will be able to enter their data on a specific wildlife area into a software interface, which will provide them with a feasibility overview of several possible applications of the area. Only a mouse click will be needed in order to retrieve an advice, e.g. on whether to dedicate the area to aquatic or terrestrial conservation target species.
Report specifics
The research team consists of Marieke de Lange, Joost Van der Pol en Jack Faber. To the first report in this series 'Ecological Vulnerability in Wildlife' Joost Lahr contributed.
- Ecology is the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of living organisms and the interactions among organisms and between organisms and their environment.
- Toxicology is the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms.
- Ecotopes are relatively homogeneous, spatially-explicit landscape units that are useful for stratifying landscapes into ecologically distinct features for the measurement and mapping of landscape structure, function and change.