Rationale for Use of Wildlife Habitat Characterization to Improve Relevance of Ecological Risk Assessments

Abstract

Ecological Risk Assessments (EcoRAs) often fail to reflect important ecological conditions and processes that modulate exposure to chemicals. Greater ecological realism and more informed management decisions could be obtained if better use of landscape features were used to characterize sites. Wildlife habitat suitability models provide efficient methods to characterize landscape features that are relevant for specific species or guilds of interest (i.e., assessment species). This can help avoid assessing exposure in areas in which a wildlife species would be absent because of a lack of habitat or to bound exposure estimates in areas with low habitat quality. The results of habitat suitability are best viewed as generalized predictions of carrying capacity that provide useful insights into wildlife use patterns. The models can provide valuable information for use in modifying exposure estimates in ecological risk assessments.