Bohai Sea Environmental Risk Assessment

PUBLICATION DATE:

Saturday, January 01, 2005

PUBLICATION TYPE:

Reports

STATUS:

Out of Print

DESCRIPTION:

The Bohai Sea Environmental Risk Assessment provides information on the rationale of the environmental risk assessment, the methodology developed and applied in the Bohai Sea initiative, the results of the work and recommendations for improving the risk assessment as a management tool in Bohai Sea. The Bohai Sea risk assessment was conducted in three stages. First, an initial risk assessment (IRA) was implemented as a screening mechanism for identifying priority environmental concerns on a sea-wide basis and the related data gaps and uncertainties. Second, the targets of interest were re-focused to human health, habitats and commercial and non-commercial marine species. In addition, the refined risk assessment was conducted at two levels. Risks to Bohai Sea as a whole were considered, in which the sea was treated as a single compartment and a single average exposure concentration was estimated. For selected contaminants, risks to the four parts of the Bohai Sea (Liaodong Bay, Bohai Bay, Laizhou Bay and the central region) were estimated, by calculating local exposure concentrations in the vicinity of specific human activities or natural resources. And lastly, the final report verified the data for each step of the assessment and further tidied up the calculation and identification of the environmental concerns. Sources of uncertainties in the risk assessment for some contaminants were also identified.