Recently, environmental scientists have been required to perform a new type of assessment-ecological risk assessment. This is the first book that explains how to perform ecological risk assessments and gives assessors access to the full range of useful data, models, and conceptual approaches they need to perform an accurate assessment. It explains how ecological risk assessment relates to more familiar types of assessments. It also shows how to organize and conduct an ecological risk assessment, including defining the source, selecting endpoints, describing the relevant features of the receiving environment, estimating exposure, estimating effects, characterizing the risks, and interacting with the risk manager. Specific technical topics include finding and selecting toxicity data; statistical and mathematical models of effects on organisms, populations, and ecosystems; estimation of chemical fate parameters; modeling of chemical transport and fate; estimation of chemical uptake by organisms; and estimation, propagation, and presentation of uncertainty. Ecological Risk Assessment also covers conventional risk assessments, risk assessments for existing contamination, large scale problems, exotic organisms, and risk assessments based on environmental monitoring. Environmental assessors at regulatory agencies, consulting firms, industry, and government labs need this book for its approaches and methods for ecological risk assessment. Professors in ecology and other environmental sciences will find the book's practical preparation useful for classroom instruction. Environmental toxicologists and chemists will appreciate the discussion of the utility for risk assessment of particular toxicity tests and chemical determinations.
Rice is cultivated throughout the world under submerged conditions. The high water requirements and the heavy pesticide load used in rice paddies worldwide have resulted in contamination of associated surface water, such as streams, ditches, rivers and lakes. The uniform risk assessment approach which has been developed for other crops is not applicable to rice paddies, because of the specific conditions applied to rice cultivation. Pesticide Risk Assessment in Rice Paddies: Theory and Practice fills the gap in information on this subject. Written by experts, this book summarizes the methods used for pesticide risk assessment in rice paddies, the limitations and problems encountered and future developments. It also examines the various agronomic, pesticide application and risk assessment approaches used in different rice cultivated zones in Asia, America and Europe and is an essential reference for those working in this area.* The only up-to-date book dealing with pesticide risk assessment in the flooded conditions of rice paddies* Offers guidelines on the use and application of existing modeling tools, specific for rice cultivation* Presents the differences and similarities in rice cropping systems and how these relate to pesticide risk assessment
Pollinators play a vital role in ecosystem health and are essential to ensuring food security. With declines in both managed and wild pollinator populations in recent years, scientists and regulators have sought answers to this problem and have explored implementing steps to protect pollinator populations now and for the future. Pesticide Risk Assessment for Pollinators focuses on the role pesticides play in impacting bee populations and looks to develop a risk assessment process, along with the data to inform that process, to better assess the potential risks that can accompany the use of pesticide products. Pesticide Risk Assessment for Pollinators opens with two chapters that provide a biological background of both Apis and non-Apis species of pollinators. Chapters then present an overview of the general regulatory risk assessment process and decision-making processes. The book then discusses the core elements of a risk assessment, including exposure estimation, laboratory testing, and field testing. The book concludes with chapters on statistical and modeling tools, and proposed additional research that may be useful in developing the ability to assess the impacts of pesticide use on pollinator populations. Summarizing the current state of the science surrounding risk assessment for Apis and non-Apis species, Pesticide Risk Assessment for Pollinators is a timely work that will be of great use to the environmental science and agricultural research communities. Assesses pesticide risk to native and managed pollinators Summarizes the state of the science in toxicity testing and risk assessment Provides valuable biological overviews of both Apis and non-Apis pollinators Develops a plausible overall risk assessment framework for regulatory decision making Looks towards a globally harmonized approach for pollinator toxicity and risk assessment
Although concerns over the ecological impacts of pesticides gave rise to the environmental movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, since that time, pesticide use and its effects have been largely ignored by the law and by legal scholars. This book addresses this omission by providing a unique and serious treatment of the significance of pesticide issues in environmental law and takes an ecological perspective on the legal issues. Dealing with a wide range of questions relating to pests and pesticides, the book focuses primarily on agricultural pesticide use as the largest contaminator in the US. It also examines the legacy of past pesticide use and analyzes how recent developments in ecological science can inform the law and increase our understanding of ecology. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the book will be of interest to academics, lawyers, scientists and environmental and agricultural professionals.
Fueled partially by large, well-publicized efforts such as the Human Genome Project, genomic research is a rapidly growing area in multiple biological disciplines, including toxicology. Much of this potential, however, has been discussed in the literature and at technical meetings only in relatively broad terms, making it difficult to assess exactl