Ecological Recovery and Resilience in Environmental Risk Assessments at the European Food Safety Authority.

Theo Brock,Geoff Frampton,Fabrice Martin‐Laurent,Franz Bigler,Wopke van der Werf,Robert Luttik,Christer Hogstrand,Agnes Rortais,Christopher John Topping

doi:10.1002/ieam.4079

Abstract

A conceptual framework was developed by a working group of the Scientific Committee of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to guide risk assessors and risk managers on when and how to integrate ecological recovery and resilience assessments into environmental risk assessments (ERA). In this commentary we advocate that a systems approach is required to integrate the diversity of ecosystem services (ES) providing units, environmental factors, scales, and stressor-related responses necessary to address the context dependency of recovery and resilience in agricultural landscapes. A future challenge in the resilience assessment remains to identify the relevant bundles of ecosystem services provided by different types of agroecosystem that need to be assessed in concert. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2018;14:586-591. © 2018 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

Highlights

INTRODUCTIONThe European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) performs ERA for regulated products connected to the production of food and feed (e.g. pesticides, genetically modified organisms, feed additives) and for invasive alien species harmful for plant health
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) performs ERA for regulated products connected to the production of food and feed and for invasive alien species harmful for plant health
In 2016, the Scientific Committee (SC) of EFSA published a scientific opinion on how to address ecological recovery and resilience in ERA conducted at EFSA

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) performs ERA for regulated products connected to the production of food and feed (e.g. pesticides, genetically modified organisms, feed additives) and for invasive alien species harmful for plant health. In 2016, the Scientific Committee (SC) of EFSA published a scientific opinion on how to address ecological recovery and resilience in ERA conducted at EFSA. Focusing on links between ecological recovery and resilience, this poster aims to summarise the main key points of the scientific opinion. We define resilience as the system’s capacity to return to its normal operating range (NOR) of ecosystem services (ES) delivery

Key Points

Addressing ecological recovery and resilience in ERA requires a systems approach