Ecological Risk Assessment Guidelines

The ERA Process: Agree on Objectives   

A planning process precedes the formal assessment. The risk manager, stakeholders and the risk assessor agree on the objectives of the assessment. The risk assessor and the risk manager share responsibility for this stage.

Agree on Management Goals

The risk manager is responsible for establishing the management goals. These goals should take account of stakeholder inputs and the socio-economic environment. The risk assessor, in agreement with the risk manager, must ensure that assessment end points can be related to management goals.     ...more

Define Management Options

The management decisions that will be informed by the ERA must be defined explicitly. The assessment can only be designed to support the relevant decision(s) if the options are clearly defined. The risk assessor and risk manager need to ensure alignment between the assessment and the management options.     ...more

Ensure Appropriateness of ERA

Determine whether an ERA will best enable managers to make informed environmental decisions, compared to other approaches, such as expert opinion, technological standards or a precautionary approach.     ...more

Agree on Scope

Both the risk assessor and risk manager must agree on the scope of the ERA within the constraints of data availability, scientific knowledge, financial resources and spatial and temporal scales. Of particular importance is the level of uncertainty that the risk manager will tolerate. The lower the tolerance the more extensive the assessment is likely to be. The scope of the ERA may require the assessment to be at a screening level or a detailed, site-specific level.     ...more

Produce Summary Report

Produce a summary report on the outcome of the Agree on Objectives phase. It serves as a record of discussions and provides the terms of reference for subsequent work.     ...more