Advances in ecological risk assessment of soil in contaminated sites

Abstract

With the rapid urbanization and industrial structure adjustment in China, many contaminated sites have been left for remediation. It is essential to develop and implement ecological risk assessment (ERA) before remediating contaminated sites at a large scale as well as sequential management. In this review, we discussed the key problems in ecological risk assessment of soils in contaminated sites focusing on scientific principles, frameworks, techniques, and approaches, including 1) the site-specific framework, 2) uncertainty of conceptual model, 3) toxic mechanisms of combined contamination in soil, 4) screening of assessment endpoints, and 5) development of assessing approaches and frameworks. Then, two perspectives were addressed: the toxicological mechanism of soil combined pollution including bioavailability of contaminants in soil and their joint effect is the scientific problem in ecological risk assessment of soil in contaminated site; and weight of evidence approach based on USEPA four-step approach and EU Tier approach is applicable for ecological risk assessment in field conditions. Future studies should focus on: 1) the coordination of ecological risk assessment (ERA) framework and risk management framework, 2) conceptual mo-del, 3) process-based reactive transport models for exposure evaluation, 4) ecotoxicological mechanism of combined contamination in site soil, and 5) high ecological level endpoints. The aim of this review was to provide theoretical base and framework for the establishment of local guideline of ecological risk assessment in China.