Development process and perspective on ecological risk assessment

This paper reviews the development history of ecological risk assessment (EcoRA) and presents a perspective for EcoRA and management. EcoRA, which is aimed at appraising a wide range of undesirable impacts on ecosystems exposed to a possible eco-environmental hazard, has been highly recommended for environmental decision-making. The research progress are reviewed, including research area, content and method are reviewed. Based on this inspection, an integrated framework characterizing problem formulation, risk characterization and risk assessment is depicted to illumine future EcoRA. We conclude that larger-scale assessment studies are still lacking, and assessment theories and methods are being developed. In addition, regional EcoRA needs to make further efforts, especially in theoretical study, uncertainty analysis, integrated use of GIS software and comprehensive risk assessment at regional scale in the future work.