Development of a site-specific ecological risk assessment for contaminated sites: Part I. A multi-criteria based system for the selection of ecotoxicological tests and ecological observations

A two modules Decision Support System (DSS-ERAMANIA) was developed in order to support the site-specific Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) for contaminated sites. Within the first module, the TRIAD and the Weight of Evidence approaches were used to develop a site-specific Ecological Risk Assessment framework including three tires of investigation. Selected ecological observations and ecotoxicological tests were compared according to Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods and expert judgment, and the obtained ranking was used to identify a suitable set of tests, at each investigation tier, to be applied to the examined case study. A simplified application of the proposed methodology, implemented in the Module 1 of the DSS-ERA-MANIA, is described and discussed.